


Family Man

by Topographical_Map_Of_Utah



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, Fake Marriage, Fluff and Smut, Kid BB-8, M/M, Masturbation, Modern AU, Mpreg, Mutual Pining, Trans Poe Dameron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 20:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 56,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10974654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah/pseuds/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah
Summary: Based off of this 'Help Wanted' ad:"I lied when i got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early to pick him up from day care, take him to doctors appointments and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. Looking to rent a kid for bring your kid to work day."Put simply, Finn's in too deep.





	1. Chapter 1

"Poe? can I ask you a favour?"

"Sure thing." Poe adjusted his phone between his shoulder and ear, managing somehow to flip the Mickey Mouse pancake he was making with one hand. It was Saturday, so in keeping with a former agreement with his daughter, Poe was contractually obligated to make pancakes. Specifically, double chocolate-chip pancakes with extra chocolate. Maybe he spoiled the kid, but no one was about to stop him. "What's the job?"

"I need..." Finn groaned and Poe thought he heard his head hit either the desk or a wall. He did that a lot. It was a wonder his forehead wasn't constantly bruised. "Geez, this is gonna sound weird..."

"Spit it out, buddy."

"I-need-to-borrow-Bianca-for-bring-your-kid-to-work-day-because-I-told-my-boss-I-have-a-daughter-and-I-can't-go-back-on-that-and-"

"I said spit, not spray. Slow down, would you? Why the hell would you tell Hux you have a daughter?"

Hux was the chief curator of the museum where Finn worked as his long-suffering assistant. The museum director was grooming him to take over Hux's position, but Hux was doing his very best to keep the job for himself, always sticking Finn with setting up exhibits that were poised for failure. Once he had been expected to garner interest for a showing of coprolite. To call that a shitty situation would be an understatement.

Of course, Finn rose to the occasion each time Hux tried to trip him up, but none of that had really earned him any loyalty on Finn's part. 

"So I could get off work early. When I want to leave, I say I have to pick her up from daycare or bring her to a doctor's appointment. It's worked so far."

"For fuck's sake, Finn..." Poe was shaking his head, but he had to admit that Finn's plan was kind of brilliant. Still; it was the principle of the thing. "So if you don't show up with a kid today you're fucked?"

"In essence. So can I please borrow her? I really need a kid, which sounds really weird, forget I said that. But I just-"

"Swing by in a few minutes, alright? She'll be ready." Poe slid Bianca's pancake onto her favourite Cinderella plate and glanced at the batter he still had left over. He always made too much. It was something of an issue. "You want a pancake when you get here?"

"Thank you..."

"Don't mention it." After hanging up he tossed his phone onto the living room couch, only a couple feet away from where he stood in the kitchen. There was a new tear in one of the cushions, Poe noticed. He would cover it up with a throw pillow later.

The apartment was a glorified shoebox, really - just enough room for him, a scattering of secondhand furniture, and a four-year-old who seemed to take up most of the space. Poe glanced at the finger paintings stuck up on the fridge with letter magnets and puffed out his cheeks. Not exactly the life he had envisioned for himself when he started basic training all those years ago, but what could you do.

Instead of bemoaning the long list of shit that had gone wrong, Poe just set about scraping away the burnt crust that had collected on his griddle, tipping in more oil and trying not to think too hard about Finn. After Bianca, he was probably one of the happier accidents that had found their way into Poe's mess of a life.

One of the interns at the shop babysat on occasion, at a discounted rate, too. Poe wasn't one for taking what he considered charity, but Rey had insisted, saying that spending an hour after daycare with Bianca was barely even work.

That had been the arrangement for awhile, then one day Poe had opened his door to find a young, handsome stranger sitting on his fraying living room carpet, Bianca happily installed in his lap with her favourite storybook. The handsome part he was okay with; it was the total fucking stranger bit that put him on edge.

After about two seconds of panic, the guy was quick to explain that Rey had sent him in her stead, that he would be coming to take care of Bianca from now on if that was alright with Poe, and that his name was Finn and he really would appreciate it if Poe didn't stab him.

Because in the time it took Finn to explain all that, Poe had pulled out the switchblade he kept in his pocket. He couldn't even recall doing it - it had all been reflex. Turning off the military paranoia was kind of tough, sometimes. It made meeting people tough.  

But in spite of that little kerfuffle, Finn quickly became something of a fixture in the household, popping in to ask for advice dealing with his clunker of a car, leaving behind homemade muffins or school supplies for Bianca. He even hung around after Bianca went to bed, sometimes, staying up with a cup of instant coffee and a smile on his face, listening to Poe ramble like he was actually someone interesting, not just some washed-up mechanic whose life was held together with duct tape; not just some failed pilot with a schoolgirl crush he was doing a bad job of hiding.

All in all, it was a symbiotic relationship Poe cared too much about to risk. Besides, Finn was out of his league.

The sound of clumsy footsteps shuffling on the carpet made Poe smile, pulled away from his thoughts. He turned as Bianca toddled into the kitchen, her hair in disarray and her thumb in her mouth. At four years old she was probably too old to be sucking on it, but Poe couldn't figure out how to make her stop for the life of him.

"Hi, pumpkin." Poe crouched and pushed back her curls so he could kiss her forehead. Then she held up her teddybear and Poe kissed his forehead, too. "Did you sleep well?"

"The tooth fairy came!" she announced, holding out a shiny coin and smiling her gap-toothed smile. Poe had nearly sneezed while he was planting it under the pillow, but he had managed to get out in time, preserve her sense of childhood wonder. "I got a whole dollar."

"Really? That's a lot." In this economy that wouldn't get her very far, but Poe wasn't about to spoil her fun. "Don't spend it all in one place, got it?"

"Okay." Poe turned back to the stove and Bianca clambered up onto her chair, squealing in delight when she saw her pancake. "It's Mickey! 'Is it 'cause we're we going to Disneyland? Is it?"

"Slow down there. Maybe next year." When Poe could scrape together enough cash to afford tickets. After being discharged (honourably, thank God), he had spent his time working overtime in the shop, just trying to make ends meet. But between the meds and the rent and the kid he hadn't asked for, the gap just kept getting wider.

Not to say he didn't love Bianca more than life itself, but getting knocked up hadn't exactly been his idea.

"Kim went to Disneyland. So did everybody else at least one time. Armaan went to the one in Japan." Bianca said glumly. She chopped of Mickey's ear, thinking everything over while she gnawed on it. "Papá? Do people gotta have at least three people to go on planes?" 

"What?" 

"I just think that that's maybe why we never go nowhere? We don't have enough people? Is it like bathroom buddies? You should get married, Papá. Then we'll have enough people and go on all the planes we want." she said soundly. Poe bit back a laugh, shaking his head while he poured batter into the pan, trying to ignore the sharp pops and sizzles. Those bothered him, for some godforsaken reason. He would ask a psych about it if doing so wouldn't put a hole in his wallet the size of Texas. 

"Well, today Finn's going to take you somewhere. That good enough for now?"

"Really? I like Finn. Where's he taking me?" Bianca anticipated someplace wonderful, like the fancy ice cream shop by the bridge or perhaps the playground near the beach. Finn was a lot of fun. She had considered asking him to be her extra dad, but had held off because that was probably not her call to make. It sure would be fun, though. "Where, Papá?"

Poe flicked her cheek as he sat down and Bianca closed her mouth, grinning with syrupy lips. The talking while chewing was another thing they had to work on. "Someplace fun, I promise. Don't worry. Now eat your breakfast and then I'll help you get dressed, alright? He's gonna be here in a few minutes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its late at night and i wrote a thing based on a tumblr post idk


	2. Chapter 2

"This isn't someplace fun." Bianca pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, scowling as Finn pulled into the museum parking lot, managing to catch the last staff spot. "Papá said we were going someplace fun, Finn!"

"We'll go someplace fun afterwards, I promise. Besides, museums can be fun." The car sputtered as he turned the key and Finn held his breath, eyeing the Check Engine light and sighing in relief when it flickered out. Sure, that may just mean that the bulb had died, but Finn wasn't about to think too hard about it. That was Poe's job. 

"Museums are for old people and hipsters." Bianca insisted as Finn lifted her out of her car seat, echoing something Poe always said. Kids really were like parrots.

"Are you calling me old?" Finn laughed. He nodded at the receptionist as he made his way into the atrium, Bianca giggling in his arms. Despite all the complaining, she started _oohing_ and _aahing_ at the cedar totem poles flanking the entrance like sentries, her head tilting so far back Finn feared for her spine. "See? It's interesting."

"How come Papá never takes me, then?" Bianca pouted. 

"Well..." Finn hesitated, not quite knowing how much Bianca knew. A museum membership would bleed Poe dry, but that didn't seem like a thing you told a little kid. "He doesn't think you'd like museums, I think. You have to be quiet, and you're both pretty bad at that."

"I'm not!" Finn shushed her and she flushed, watching him tap his ID to the lab door. "Oops."

"See? Exactly my point." A smile spread across Bianca's face and Finn nodded, glad he had diffused that bomb. Poe's financial situation wasn't exactly a popular point of discussion. The same way Finn's past was never brought up, the fact that Poe coloured in the scuff marks on his sneakers with a Sharpie and hoarded ketchup packets was swept under the rug. When they talked, they stuck to safe stuff, like Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, forgetting their realities in favour of those ones.

By chance, they came across Rey as she meandered out of the locker room, her hockey bag slung over her shoulder and a mini jawbreaker in her mouth. She could spend a whole day sucking on one of those, making it last from her morning in her uncle's repair shop with Poe, to her afternoons going to school, to her next shift as the museum's night guard. Busy bee, really. God knows when she slept.

When she saw Finn she tipped her head forwards expectantly, smiling when he kissed her forehead. "Hi, Rey."

"Hey. This your _daughter_?" Rey smirked and crouched, taking Bianca's outstretched hand. They were already well-acquainted, seeing as Rey had spent a year babysitting the kid. "Hi, Bianca."

"Hi, Tía Rey. I like your hair." Bianca reached up and pawed at Rey's newly bobbed hair. A campfire incident had left it several inches shorter on one side, so Rey had just chopped a handful of it off and called it a day. "It's pretty."

"Thanks, kiddo. I like your necklace." Rey indicated the white and orange string of plastic beads around Bianca's neck, making her smile. She had made it in daycare and was very proud. "Finn, don't worry, by the way. Hux won't be in 'till late. You're safe for now." Rey ruffled Bianca's hair, laughing on her way out the door. She had known about his little fib from the beginning, and seemed to find it quite entertaining.

"Safe from what, Finn?" Excited, Bianca hopped up onto Finn's desk, looking at the shelves laden down with cracked pottery and Haida dance masks, all tagged and waiting to be sorted into the appropriate collection. "Museums aren't dangerous."

"Not exactly..." Finn started to boot up his computer, turning to watch her make a paper airplane out of a sticky note. "Hey, did your Papá tell you why I brought you here?"

"No. There's a special reason?"

"Sorta. So listen up, kiddo. It's kinda complicated..."

 

\------------

 

Surprisingly, Bianca had no problem being used as a stand-in daughter, actually laughing when it was all laid out for her. Her only request was compensation in the form of ice cream from the pretty pink shop by the beach. Finn wasn't about to deny her that, so the matter settled itself neatly enough.

Bianca spent her day clinging to Finn's leg, leaving little grooves in the fabric of his jeans. She watched him rearrange the display cases of bone china patterned with roses and birds, laughed when he stuck a pair of oversized gloves on her hands and let her dust off a buffalo skull like she had seen in Jurassic Park, and fell asleep in his lap while he sent emails about the upcoming charity gala. Lunch in the glossy, newly renovated cafeteria was especially exciting, if only because she got to use fancy mugs and order whatever she liked. Finn had never seen a kid so excited about a cake pop.

While Finn was explaining to her the difference between puppetry masks and transformation masks, Hux burst into the office, his tailored black suit putting Finn's dusty flannel and jeans to shame. Hux's job seemed to consist of walking up and down the gallery halls, sizing up visitors, checking in with the ones who looked well-off enough to make a significant donation. The nitty-gritty was mostly on Finn's shoulders, now that he thought about it. If only his paycheque reflected that.

"Finn, have you sent-" When Hux saw Bianca, his face fell about an inch. It seemed his plans of revealing Finn's deception surrounding him being a dad had crumbled. 

"The gala emails? I did this morning. And this is Bianca, by the way. Bianca, this is Dr. Hux. He's my boss."

"Hi, Mr. Doctor Hux." Bianca gave Hux her brightest smile, made extra endearing by the gap her front tooth had left. When all that got her was a tight-lipped look she clammed up and slunk back behind Finn's leg, muttering in Spanish. Lord knows what she had picked up from Poe; the man swore like a sailor at the least provocation.

"It's Dr. Hux, thank you. She doesn't much look like you, you know. Or does she take after her mother?" Hux very nearly sneered, looking at Bianca and clearly anticipating some story of teen pregnancy and neglected child support, parents who barely spoke. Insofar as professional ventures went, he and Finn were civil with each other. But Hux made it clear that he hadn't been especially pleased when the lowly prints and drawings curator got singled out and set as his assistant. Finn wasn't overjoyed, either, but the raise had been nice.

"Nope. But I got a Papá." Bianca announced. "I got a Papá, and I got a Finn." she looked up at Hux, daring him to challenge her. She was Poe's daughter, no doubt about that. Hux's lip twitched and he turned to Finn, clearly done with trying to intimidate her.

"What an endearing child. She won't be sick again, will she? I would hate for you to miss another gala."

Finn bit back a curse, remembering the tickets he had shoved into the back of his binder, figuring he wouldn't need them. The museum threw a charity benefit every year, a stuffy evening of ballgowns and cocktails and a string quartet, the air stiff with banal conversations that fell on tired ears, the drone of a beehive lulled by smoke. The last time he had been able to bluff his way out, claiming that his fictional daughter had caught a bad cold. So clearly, not Finn's idea of a pleasant time, but if it was a chance to spite Hux...

"'Course we'll be there. Your Papá would like that, right, Bianca?"

"Right! He never does fancy stuff, so it'd be nice." she confirmed, smiling at Hux again. He slunk away like a vampire confronted with sunlight. A rather apt comparison, now that Finn thought about it. Hux really needed to get out more, get some sun. 

"I look forward to seeing you both there, then. You and your...partner." After seething on that word for awhile, Hux turned on his glossy heel and strutted off, looking a bit miffed that things hadn't gone as planned. When the door clicked shut Finn took a deep breath and ruffled Bianca's hair, feeling quite proud of her performance.

"He's not nice." she said decisively, glaring at the door.

"Truer words have never been spoken. We're done for the day, kiddo. So about that ice cream..."

 

\-----------

 

"Finn? Why don't Papá ever come with us places?"

"Huh?" Finn crouched and tied back Bianca's curls with the scrunchy he had dug up in his backpack, looping it all into a neat little bun. One of the kids he used to babysit took ballet, so he had become rather adept at it. "Why d'you ask?"

"You always take me fun places. You even took me to Playland in the summer. I almost puked 'cause of the rides, but it was fun. But me and Papá never do stuff like that."

"He works really hard, Bianca. When he gets home he's really tired."

"But if he works so hard, why's he still not get anything nice?" she asked glumly, licking up the last of her ice cream that had started dripping down the side of her cone. It was her favourite - chocolate birthday cake topped with brownies - so like heck she was wasting any. "My friends dads, they got cars and TVs and fancy chairs. Papá works so hard, but he hasn't got any of that."

That got her down for a little while, then her face brightened when they came across the big playground by the water, swarming with children and bright with clean, primary colours. It was nicer than the one near her house. The wood splintered on the climbing wall and the metal monkey bars burnt when it got too hot out. This marvel of vibrant red and green plastic was really a godsend.

After releasing her Finn set himself down on a bench, thinking about the gala while he sucked on his milkshake and watched Bianca run around, kicking up gravel. He had a feeling that Hux still wasn't completely off his back, so it would be prudent to bring along a date. The only question was _who._

Only it wasn't a question at all, really. Finn only had one option, here. 

While Bianca integrated herself into a cluster of kids playing tag, Finn pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his short list of contacts, knowing full well that the one he needed was pretty near the top. After kidding himself for a little while, he sighed and started to type, wondering how he had managed to get himself into this situation.

_Poe? I need another favour._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is really a late-night fic. it's 1 in the morning guys


	3. Chapter 3

"How much deeper is this gonna go?" Poe poked his head out of the engine he was working on and Finn passed him a wrench, the oil making it a little difficult to keep his grip. "You're gonna ask me to stage a wedding, next."

"I'm really sorry, Poe. I can't believe I fucked up so bad..." Finn slumped back, watching Poe fiddle with a faulty spark plug that had slowed down the Maserati he was puzzling over.

It was Finn's day off, and since he didn't have all that many hobbies, he was spending the day sitting on the hood of an Aston Martin in Luke's garage. It was in the shop for a couple failed subsystems, according to the sticker on the window. Apparently it was a common issue. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

"It's alright, buddy. Besides, I've never been to a gala. Seems like a good time." Poe reflected. "Shit, I'll have to rent a suit, won't I..."

"I'll foot the bill. I'm the one dragging you into this, after all." Finn said quickly. Poe's face relaxed and he nodded. Already, it looked like he had started tallying the numbers in his head, shifting things around, trying to find some wiggle room. Finn was by no means wealthy, but he lived comfortably enough that a couple hundred for a tuxedo rental wouldn't send his life into turmoil. "Besides, it's just one rental. I already have a couple suits. I kinda have to, working in museums..."

"Yeah, well, the dress code around here ain't quite as uptight." Poe yanked at something in the engine, splattering himself with a brownish smear of transmission oil. He just sighed and got back to work. That proved his point quite nicely, now that Finn thought about it.

"Really? I hadn't noticed. What kind of suit d'you want, by the way?" Being a core staff member, Finn had to wear a bowtie, but Poe wasn't under quite as much obligation to look pretentious.

"Christ, I dunno. Do I look like the kind of guy who wears suits?" Poe shrugged and grabbed the Coke balancing precariously on the edge of his workbench. "I don't even look like a guy who could pull off a button down if the sleeves aren't rolled up..."

"You'll be fine, Poe." Finn assured him. "Just try not to get oil on the suit."

 

\-----------

 

"And where are you from?" The woman's smile was a little too curious, like she was anticipating some grand story of exotic places in the far reaches of the world. Seeing as she was a rather generous contributor, Finn just smiled back, wondering how she would feel if out of the blue he asked her which pilgrim ship her ancestors had come on.

"I live in Vancouver." he said simply.

"But before then?" she prodded. Her crimson lipstick matched her manicure, Finn noticed. So did her necklace, ditto for her pantsuit. The only thing that diverged from that colour scheme was her trendily grey hair. That outfit must have taken ages to put together.

"Burnaby." he answered. Before she could probe him with further questions about where he was _really_ from, someone called her away. She excused herself, Finn nodded, and then he leant back against the bar, watching her retreat in relief. Not an unpleasant woman by any means, but that had been the third time tonight someone had come up to him wondering about his origin story. It got to be a little annoying, after awhile.

But perhaps Finn was calling a bit of attention to himself, truth be told. The glossy purple tux he was wearing _did_ have a tendency to draw the eye. He had picked it out because firstly, he looked fucking good in it, and secondly, because he wanted Poe to be able to notice him in the sea of black and white penguin suits. The colour was rather striking, after all.

Seeing as Rey had flat out refused to attend, Finn was the youngest by a mile, and spent the first half hour propped up against the bar, nursing a martini and fending off the advances of curious middle-aged socialites, drawn in by what Rey called his 007 mystique. Clearly, she had watched too many Bond movies.

Overall, it wasn't a terrible way to spend his time, but he couldn't wait for Poe to turn up. Especially when Hux approached, all gussied up in a black suit with red piping. It just succeeded in making Finn think of MCR, but saying that to his boss' face may not be advisable. After all, the damn thing had probably cost more than what Poe spent on himself over the course of an entire year.

"You're not alone, are you? Where's that partner you were so keen on telling me about?" Hux asked, considering Finn while the bartender put together his usual cocktail, already having the order memorized from several years worth of galas and functions.   
  
"He got caught in traffic." That was probably true. Poe had taken up the offer of borrowing one of Han's cars. Taking the bus in fancy clothing would probably end badly, after all. Finn craned his neck, glancing at the door as a familiar engine rumbled outside, the old Mustang that Rey spent her spare time restoring cruising into the lot. Finn could recognize that purr anywhere. "Well, speak of the devil..."

After handing off his keys to the valet, Poe stepped inside, his muted blue suit almost navy in the yellow light. Sensible, but he still looked quite the picture. Not to mention the fact that it went well with Finn's outfit. That part was nice, too.

Without missing a beat, Poe sauntered over to the bar and pressed a kiss to Finn's cheek, completely unabashed. They had set a baseline for what level of PDA they could deal with. It was play by ear, mostly. Hold hands when you felt like it, kiss on the cheek if the occasion arose. But the one solid rule was that in case Hux suspected they weren't a real couple, they would proceed to the nearest shadowy corner and make out like teenagers. That was a last resort, though.

"Hey, babe. Sorry I'm late. I forgot how to tie a tie." 

"Glad you figured it out." Finn adjusted the crooked knot and smiled, seeing the mischievous spark in Poe's eye. At his side, Hux had hushed up a bit, squinting at Poe like he was trying to decide if he was some type of hologram. 

"And you are..."

"Poe Dameron. Good to meet you." Poe shook Hux's hand and nodded at Finn. "I belong to him."

"Charming." Hux considered the two of them, his face twisted up like he had just swallowed a lemon. While he puzzled over that, Finn occupied himself with looking at Poe, which he was perfectly entitled to do, considering the fact they were a 'couple'.

He had shaved and combed his hair, for once, going so far as to tease it with a bit of gel that must have been hiding in his medicine cabinet. Finn curled a stray lock between his fingers and smiled. He had even put on cologne, from the smell of it.

"See? I told you you would look fine." Finn hummed, smiling when Hux sniffed a goodbye and stalked off. Once he was out of earshot they both started giggling, feeling like a couple of kids who had hid the cookie jar. "Don't you dare leave me alone. He might actually kill me for this."

"'Course I won't. Besides, this is uncharted territory for me." Poe looped his arm in Finn's and smiled. "Like hell I'm going into this bourgeoise shit alone; You're my guide."

Sure enough, Poe spent the evening glued to Finn's side, trying not to grimace when people handed him caviar or started talking about country clubs and golf. But he did brighten when they stumbled upon a conversation about luxury cars. For a guy who sometimes went without bus fare for a month, he knew his Lamborghinis. 

Once Poe had securely looped a couple people into a technical conversation Finn couldn't understand, he slunk off to the dessert table, hoping for creampuffs or mini cupcakes. When all he could find were macaroons dusted with gold and chocolate that was apparently vintage (Finn wasn't quite sure he wanted to know what that meant), he made his way back over to Poe, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention.

"You want to step out? I'm suffocating in here..."

"Sure, sweetheart. Excuse me." Poe smiled at the little group he had accumulated, and Finn bit back a snicker when he noticed the shock that spread across one of the donors face. If anything, this whole venture was worth it just for the reactions they got. With that in mind, Finn wrapped his arm around Poe's waist and dragged him outside without further discussion.

There was a field behind the museum that was awfully convenient for this type of thing. The air was cool and damp, liquid in your throat. Poe loosened his tie and leant back against the balcony railing, closing his eyes and letting the wind ruffle his hair, drinking it in like wine. Finn came up beside him, watching the grass sway and shift, emerald silk rippling in the breeze.

"Thanks for coming." he sighed. Poe laughed and shook his head, watching the last strains of orange sunset disappear from the sky above, dancing off of the reflecting pool like flames. 

"It's free food and good company. Did you think I was gonna say no?"

"Fair point." Finn fiddled with the collar of his suit, feeling the indent the button was leaving on his neck. "Can't wait to get home. I'm not a fan of suits. Makes me feel like I have to stand up straight..."

"I've never worn one. Never had an excuse to."

"Not even grad?"

"Nope. My aunt insisted on picking out this awful dress for me." As soon as the words were out, Poe went a bit red. Finn didn't quite understand the slip-up. Maybe the champagne had muddled up his words. But whatever it was, the subject changed pretty quickly.

"Hux is watching." Poe warned, keeping his eyes on the reflecting pool. "At the bar. Has been for a couple minutes now." Finn took the cue not to look and nodded, suddenly understanding why he had felt eyes on him.

"So what do we do?" he whispered. As tempting as it was to pull Poe into a kiss, they had to keep it professional. Then, inspiration. Someone had propped open the door and strains of the quartet made their way outside, warming the cool night air. A smile spread across Poe's face and he pushed himself upright, extending his hand to Finn.

"May I?"

"I can't dance." Finn admitted. Nevertheless, he let Poe pull him closer, his grip firm and steady on Finn's waist. 

"Okay. I'll lead." That decision made, Poe straightened his back, counting Finn into a slow, easy waltz. Easy in theory, at least. Finn was stuck rocking clumsily from heel to toe, trying not to step on Poe's shoes and trying to match up with the music, getting the rhythm mixed up with the beat and forgetting the beat when the wind picked up and he was overwhelmed with the warm spice of Poe's cologne. All in all, he could be doing a better job of this.

"You're doing great, I swear." Poe grinned and twirled Finn around, making him curse. They were the same height, so Finn inevitably stumbled, prompting Poe to pull him ever closer, laughing when Finn clung to him for dear life. "You mind?"

"Not particularly." Finn adjusted his grip, knocking Poe's nose with his forehead when he looked down, watching his feet. "Christ, this is half the reason I didn't come to this last year. I've got two left feet..."

"You can learn. It's not all that hard." Poe assured him. The last chords of _Waltz of the Flowers_ faded to nothingness and they stepped away from each other, Poe grinning and Finn feeling himself smile back. Poe just had that effect on him, it seemed. "Say, d'you want to get outta here? This isn't my crowd."

"Not mine, either. I'm just in this job 'cause I'm a nerd." Finn admitted. Poe threw his head back and laughed, looping his arm around Finn's and dragging him back inside, being sure to press a kiss to his ear when they passed Hux.

 

\------------

 

"Wait, really?" Finn nodded and Poe groaned, slumping against the windshield. "Aw, Christ, You could've told me I've spent the night getting handsy with a kid..."

"I'm twenty-three, Poe. Nine years isn't that big of a gap." Poe mumbled something about having to be put on the registry and Finn laughed, the sound big in the emptiness, echoing off of the sea far below and the trees far above. 

They were sitting on the hood of the convertible by a roadside lookout point, the night sky spread out above them like a map to nowhere in particular, ice cream cones in their hands, and their ties hanging undone around their necks. Turns out McDonalds soft serve made for a really good palate cleanser after the pretentious hors d'oeuvres at the gala; caramelized figs and oysters and caviar tartlets, not to mention a dozen other things Finn didn't have names for. Would it have killed them to make sliders?

"Thanks for coming, by the way. I know I said so already, but you saved my hide..."

"No worries. Sorry about being late. Bianca stole my tie. She wanted to use it as a tail. Apparently she was being a dragon." Poe laughed, licking at the ice cream dripping down the side of his cone, much in the same way that Finn had seen Bianca do a couple days ago. She and Poe were really the spitting image of each other. 

"Am I allowed to ask about her mom?" he blurted out. After a year, he was sort of aching to know. And since he was a little bit drunk, it seemed like his brain had decided it needed the answer. "Don't answer if you don't want to."

"She, well..." For a moment, everything went quiet. Then Poe heaved a sigh and shook his head. "I, uh, I'm the one who pushed her out, actually. The guy who knocked me up flew the coop." Poe crumpled his napkin and shrugged, ripping little nicks in the paper. "Kinda confusing, I know."

"You're..." It took a second, then Finn blinked as everything clicked into place. "Oh! I didn't know that. Huh."

"Yeah. Ain't exactly common knowledge. Sorry to spring it on you."

"Don't worry about it. It's not like you owed me an explanation. Besides, it doesn't change much, does it?"

"I guess not." Again, that moment of uneasy silence, then Poe piped up again. "You're not gonna interrogate me? What's a guy doing having kids, nothing like that?"

"Nah. Why would I?"

"Because most everyone else does."

"Then most everyone's being an asshole." Finn shrugged and crammed the last of his cone into his mouth, licking the ice cream off of his fingertips as he pulled Poe off of the hood of the car. "C'mon, old man. It's getting late. Bianca's gonna miss you." 

It was a pretty quick drive back into the city, the stillness and breeze exchanged for innumerable lights and honking cars. Finn caught a spot right in front of Poe's apartment, grinning when he hopped out and leant on the sill of the passenger side window, a goofy grin on his face.

"This was fun." he said simply.

"Yeah." Finn very nearly leant in to press a kiss to Poe's cheek, then he remembered that they weren't actually a thing. So instead he sat back and smirked. "Say hi to Bianca for me."

Poe saluted and turned on his heel, his whistling piercing the midnight silence. It made Finn want to stick around, but that would probably be creepy. So he drove off, trying to put the evening out of his mind. But at a stoplight he rolled down the window and took a deep breath of the sharp night air, _Waltz of the Flowers_ still lilting in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another 1 AM update yaay


	4. Chapter 4

"...What d'you think, Tía Rey? I think dragons would be gooder friends than unicorns, 'cause they can fly you where you gotta go, and when you want s'mores they can toast the marshmallows for you. But I guess unicorns are nice 'cause you can braid their hair. You can't braid scales. What d'you think, Tía?"

Rey mumbled something about unicorn-dragon hybrids in her sleep, cuddling her laptop like a teddybear. Bianca had been set down for bed several hours earlier, but she had popped out on the grounds that she hadn't wanted Rey to be lonely. Only the noblest intentions, really. Besides, what type of host left their guest unattended? That was just plain rude.

The elevator dinged down the hall and Bianca perked up, hearing familiar footsteps on the creaking wood. Whenever Poe worked the late shift she would stay awake, curled up in bed and waiting for the dancing step to come up to their welcome mat.

"Papá!" When the door eased open Bianca squealed in delight and ran up to him, giggling when she got scooped up and twirled around, like one of the giant swing rides at the amusement park. She was still too little to go on them, but she imagined that this was what they were like. "You smell nice."

"Thanks, pumpkin." Smiling, Poe tucked Bianca under his arm and did a quick apartment sweep, an old habit he couldn't quite shake. Dinner dishes were on the drying rack, Bianca's colouring book and collection of mismatched crayons were spread over the kitchen table, and Rey was asleep on the couch, snoring over her laptop. Poe rolled his eyes and covered her up with a quilt. The poor kid worked herself half to death.

"Were you on a date with Finn, Papá? Was it fun? Did you kiss him?" Bianca wriggled out of Poe's arms and followed him into the bedroom, clambering up onto the bed and burrowing under Poe's threadbare quilt and scratchy army surplus blanket. She seemed to think that whether or not he had kissed Finn was of the utmost importance, but she waited until Poe hung up the suit in its garment bag before pulling him onto the bed and curling up on his chest. She was something of a spider monkey, now that Poe thought about it.

"No, pumpkin. It wasn't a date. He just needed a friend to go with him to a work party, that's all."

"But you must be a special friend, for him to bring you someplace fancy like that. If it wasn't a date, why couldn't he bring me?"

"Oh, you wouldn't have liked it." Poe assured her. Bianca shook her head and Poe carried her back to her bedroom, dropped her onto her little cot, pulled up the blankets and handed her the worn teddy bear Leia had given her when she was a baby. "We had to eat brussel sprouts. And duck liver."

"Eww. That doesn't make sense. I thought those people were rich. Why do they eat that when they're rich? If I was rich like them, I would get ice cream every single day. And french fries." Bianca yawned. "And then I'd get a house big enough for you and me and Finn to live in. And a pony."

"That's nice, baby. Now sleep, alright? Sweet dreams."

"Say good night to Tony, too." she insisted as Poe made his way out the door. "He lives under the bed. He got kicked outta the monster world so I let him stay here. He leaked government documents and they kicked him out."

For a moment, Poe just stood in the doorway, trying to work through what she had just said. A child's imagination was really a magical thing.

Once he and Tony were properly introduced, Poe wandered into the living room, the floor cool on his bare feet, despite the fact he had actually paid the heating bill this month. It seemed that Rey had run off, leaving behind ten of the thirty dollars Poe had laid out for her. At least she had taken the muffins that were sitting on the counter; it would have been embarrassing if she hadn't.

After debating with himself for a moment Poe slipped the money back into his wallet, glancing at the budget he kept tacked to the fridge beside Bianca's macaroni octopus. So far he had covered rent, groceries, the field trip Bebe had mentioned. He was pretty sure there were still a couple other bills, though. If things got tight he might have to go off T for another month, but he could live with that.

Unless his period came back. That would fucking suck.

He was still seething about the potential of that when he got into the shower, washing the gel out of his hair, the cold water sharp on his scalp. He had never liked the feeling of having a head full of goo. The smell was too much like his prom night, stuck in his tía's white and gold bathroom, a curling iron sizzling by his ear. That evening had ended with him chopping off his hair and hiding in a youth shelter until the day he was supposed to be shipped off to basic training.

Quite a bit of emotional baggage, for a haircare product.

Poe wiped the steam off of the mirror and stuck his tongue out at his reflection, feeling a little bit better. His only regret was that the smell of Finn's cologne hadn't lingered. It had been nice, too: woodsy and warm, a forest after summer rain.

But of course, that couldn't be allowed to last long. No matter what he tried, Poe couldn't seem to fall asleep. He had been lying in bed for what felt like ages, but it seemed as though Finn had gotten stuck in his head, like a song playing on repeat.

Brilliant, full-ride scholarship receiving Finn, who had his Bachelors of History by twenty and got his first job a week after graduation. Who painted and babysat and had almost killed Poe at that beachside barbecue Rey's folks had thrown last summer. Finn had ended the day in nothing but swim trunks and an army green singlet that accented just how lovely and broad he was. The overall effect had left Poe feeling rather faint.

Blushing, Poe slipped his hand beneath the covers, working it under his boxers and then just shoving those down altogether when he couldn't get a good angle. He felt like a fucking teenager, stupidly horny over some guy who could do so much better than him.

That being said, the stupidly horny thing persisted.

As embarrassing as it was, Poe just let his mind wander, finding himself fixated on Finn's smile, or the feeling of his lips, warm and smooth and firm. He had lovely hands, too; Poe had gotten a good look at them while they danced. An image flashed through his head of what else Finn could do with those hands and Poe felt himself spasm deep in his core. Christ, this felt wrong.

Poe spread his legs and started to work himself open, hoping he wouldn't be too loud. Well, he could always say the tap was leaking again. He crooked his fingers, swiping around and tensing when he found his G-spot, rubbing it until his wrist started to cramp.

"Fuck..." Sweat starting to pearl on his neck, Poe pulled out his fingers with a wet pop and started up an unsteady rhythm on his clit, too fast to do much more than get him off as quick as possible. He wasn't looking for anything earth-shattering; he just had to fucking come so he could relax and hopefully fall asleep.

His hips arched off of the bed and Poe's harsh breathing stilled in the dark. He swore hoarsely, squeezing his eyes shut as he came in shuddering waves, his body aching with the feeling. When it was over Poe gasped and slumped back on the sheets, his hole pulsing and dripping slick. Still wasn't sleepy, though. That was unfortunate. Defeated, Poe pressed his face into his pillow and groaned, feeling himself flush all over again.

It couldn't possibly be a nine year age difference, could it?

 

\-----------

 

Finn had spent the night driving around town with the roof down, the wind numbing his face and thoughts alike. Because if he let them run through his head at full speed, he was pretty sure they'd start a chain reaction and his head would explode like an atom bomb. Poe was a really hard thought to shake, after all. The guy was like the world's most handsome ear worm.

Once Finn found his way back to his and Rey's apartment, he slumped against the mailbox, flicking through a couple letters from the museum, some stuff for Rey. Then there were a few things that belonged to the flower shop downstairs. Finn shoved his tie into his pocket and made his way down, still whistling a waltz he had probably heard the night before.

Their mail was always getting mixed up, but Finn didn't particularly mind. It was a nice excuse to step into the flower shop beneath his apartment, breathe in the hose water and rich dirt and greenery, forget the dusty street right out the door. His own little oasis in the middle of a desert.

"Hey, Baze." The florist grunted a greeting as he lovingly arranged what looked to be a wedding bouquet, roses and hydrangeas and smatterings of baby's breath. He was rather popular with brides, once they got over the gruff exterior he had going.

Upon meeting Baze, most people took him for a bricklayer or retired police officer. He did have that kind of build, what with the shoulders and scars and wild, tangled hair. So it was a shock when one found out he spent his days putting together flower arrangements that smelled as beautiful as they looked. A few of the brides-to-be who had come to him on their friend's recommendations had thought it was a joke. But they all came around the second they got their arrangements.

"What's with the tux?" he asked, considering his bouquet before wrapping it up in a satin sheath and blue grosgrain bow.

"I was at a party." And as such was under no obligation to turn up to work today. Most of the staff would be home nursing hangovers, whereas Finn was just nursing a crush. That seemed worse, somehow. You couldn't cure a crush with a nap and an Alka Seltzer.

Suddenly there was a burst of Mandarin from the side room and Baze shot something back, equally as abrupt. Finn snorted and rested against the counter. He was sure Baze and his husband were very much in love, but it was hard to tell from their conversations. Their back and forth in English was already pretty jarring, so Lord knows what they managed in the language with words they didn't have to think about.

"Hello, Chirrut." Finn called.

"Hi, Finn, Pick a number."

"Any number?"

"Any number."

"2187? Why?"

"Old fool's planning on winning the lottery again. It's never going to happen." Baze raised his voice on the last part of that sentence, earning a snappish retort Finn couldn't understand.

"Have you ever had a quiet conversation?" he wondered aloud while Baze looked at the envelopes.

"In the early days, yes. Then we got used to each other. You'll learn that in time, little brother." Baze chuckled and reached under the counter, retrieving the aster bouquet Finn had requested the week before. "Since you're here, go say hi to your mother for me."

"And come back when you work up the courage to ask that boy on a date." Chirrut called as Finn walked out the door. Finn would ask how he knew about Poe, but over the years he had just accepted the fact that there were some things he simply wasn't meant to understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd like to thank woyzeck for the image of john boyega in a tank top.
> 
> also guess what time it is.


	5. Chapter 5

"...Hux is still being a jerk, but that's to be expected." Finn laughed, arranging the flowers in the chipped orange vase sitting on the bedside table. Bianca had made it a little under a year ago at a friend's birthday party, given it to Finn when she heard that his mom had been in a bad car crash.

"For flowers. So your Mamá can have flowers in the hospital." Bianca had said, pressing the smooth porcelain cup into his hands. "Flowers make everything better, I think."

Once the aster was neatly arranged in its pot, Finn stepped back from the hospital bed and smiled, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. He had forgotten his house keys in his other pants, so the tux was still in commission. He had got a couple appreciative glances for that wardrobe choice, truth be told.

"Sorry that I didn't visit yesterday, by the way. I had to go to a work thing." Finn explained, pushing up the window to get the air flowing. Antiseptic was pretty harsh on the nose. A friendly gust of wind ruffled his hair and he closed his eyes, remembering the way his mother used to stroke his head while she read him storybooks, her voice steady and strong in his ear. "You didn't miss much, really. Bianca's still a sweetheart, and Rey nearly set the apartment on fire again. That was fun..."

Finn leant on the bed railing and sighed, glancing at the heart monitor. Cards and drawings and houseplants had accumulated over the past ten months, brightening the drab little room as best they could. Taking it all down would hurt, Finn knew. But once his mom hit a year in this state, they would be shipping her off to a longterm care facility, and Finn wouldn't be able to visit nearly as much as he had to.

Trying to shake that thought, Finn went over to the tackboard across from her bed, adjusting one of the drawings that had gone crooked. He had put it up ages ago so that when his mom woke up, the first thing she would lay eyes on were drawings of the house they had had to rent out, the old cat she had loved to death; stuff that was familiar to her, stuff that would make her feel comfortable when she opened her eyes. Which she would. Finn was sure she would.

Well, pretty sure, anyways.

"Thank God for Poe, though. You know that thing I said about faking that I had a daughter? He really came through to me, pretended he was my husband." Finn stretched and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and rocking on his heels. "But I think I have a crush on him? He might like me, too? But it's kinda weird, I guess. What d'you think I should..."

Finn's voice died on his lips, reminded that he wouldn't get an answer out of her. It was tough, keeping up a dialogue with someone who couldn't respond. And Angela had always loved going back and forth with her son, matching his dry wit with one of her own. She had definitely passed that trait down to him. Was sarcasm genetic?

Finn glanced at the clock and puffed out his cheeks, realising that he had stayed a bit past visiting hours. On one hand, he could possibly coax a nurse into letting him stay, but on the other, he didn't want to be a dick. It seemed wrong to exploit the fact that he was a cute guy in a tux.

"Bye, mom. I'll be back tomorrow. Baze promised a bouquet of camellias. Pink, I think. Your favourite." He pushed back a lock of her hair and smiled. She would wake up. Of course she would. "I love you."

 

\--------------

 

Poe staggered out of the elevator, yawning and trying to remember how to stay upright. Long day, as usual. Then again, had he ever had a short day? They all seemed to go on for quite some time.

He didn't particularly enjoy spending his Saturdays in the shop, but what could he do? It was the beginning of the month and rent had hit him hard. That was usually the case, actually. He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering for a moment if he couldn't just suck up his pride and ask his dad for a loan. Just ten dollars, the pocket money Poe hadn't been able to collect before running away. That seemed fair, right?

Then again, Poe and Kes hadn't spoken in quite some time. Fifteen years, to be exact. Of course, he felt guilty about the fact that Bianca didn't have a proper granddad, didn't have someone to dote on her, tell her old war stories while she dozed off in his arms. Kes had been a great guy, the best dad in the world, from what Poe could remember.

There were just a couple things he couldn't quite get his head around.

Speaking of things Kes might not be able to understand, when Poe stepped into the apartment he found Bianca curled up on the couch, her teddy bear in her arms and Poe's army surplus blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He shook his head and sighed, leaning up against the doorway and just looking, for a moment, wondering about a million different things all at once. Then Bianca mumbled in her sleep and Poe staggered to his feet again. Right, parenting. 

 _Maybe far away, or maybe real nearby_  
_He may be pouring her coffee,_  
_She may be straightening his tie..._

Poe sang a lullaby as he carried Bianca back to bed, a song from _Annie_ , one of those old VCRs he still had sitting in the back of the closet: Disney movies and dancing movies and a couple of those old Eyewitness science videos, full of cute animations and volcanos and that terrifying intro. God knows how many times Poe had been startled by that damn T-Rex.

Bianca opened her eyes and smiled dazedly at him as he tucked her in again, showing off the tooth that was starting to grow back in. "Papá! Is Finn still here? I didn't say bye to him..."

"Shh, pumpkin. It's late. You're gonna see him on Monday, alright? Now go to sleep."

"Don't wanna sleep all alone. Tony got acquitted, so now I'm all alone." she said glumly. Poe sighed and scooped her up all over again, going back to the lullaby from earlier as he shuffled across the creaky floors, headed towards his bedroom, Bianca humming along in his arms.

 _'Betcha he reads, 'betcha she sews_  
_Maybe she's made me a closet of clothes._

 _Maybe they're strict, as straight as a line_  
_Don't really care, as long as they're mine..._

 

\-------------

 

The afternoon after that, Poe was flopped out in bed while Bianca was at a friend's house, listening to the _Heathers_ soundtrack in his boxers. He knew full well that the odds of him getting tickets were hovering around zero, but a man could dream.

He was pulled away by a knock on the door, frantically yanking on jeans that squeezed when he tried working them up over his thighs and a shirt that was probably clean. By the time he got to opening the door he was a bit of a sweaty, disheveled mess, ready to tear into his landlord about shutting off his water the week before for no discernible reason other than the fact he was a dick.

But of course, it had to be Finn standing on his faded welcome mat. And of course, he had to be smartly dressed in a blazer and dark, crisp jeans. He must have been leading a gallery tour today, charming a tour group with his smile and warm, earnest voice. Brilliant.

"Hey, Finn." Belatedly, Poe realised his shirt was inside out and he wasn't wearing a binder. Also brilliant. "What's up?"

"Not much. Can we talk?"

"Sure, buddy. D'you want..." Poe didn't have much to offer in the way of drinks, he realised as Finn slipped past him, but he did have a couple scented candles he had gotten as a Christmas gift. He lit a lavender one and shoved Finn onto the couch, hearing the springs squeak beneath him. "Sorry. Kinda smells like oil in here."

"You usually smell like that. I stopped noticing awhile ago." Finn shrugged and smiled. "Grows on you, I guess."

"I say it just burns your nostrils so bad that you lose your sense of smell." Poe dug a Coke out of the fridge and tossed it at Finn before realising he hadn't read the expiration date. Wait, did pop have an expiration date? Hopefully Finn had a strong immune system. "So what's up? You need to stage a wedding? Are we inviting Hux?"

"Not in that deep, thank God. I was just...just wondering if maybe I could kind of..." Finn seemed to have forgotten how words worked, all of a sudden. "If I could..."

"If you could..." This was entirely too many ellipses for one conversation.

"Actually date you?" Finn said finally. The floodgates seemed to burst open after that. "Not because I need to convince people at work that I'm in a relationship, not that at all. It's just...just 'cause..." He twisted the hem of his shirt between his fingers and sighed. "Because I like you? A lot?"

The words sounded simple, juvenile, like something you would hear being confessed on a playground during recess, in between games of tag and monkey in the middle. Finn puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. "I mean, if you wanted to..." he added quickly, because Poe had gone awfully quiet.

"So it's my call?" Poe sat down beside Finn, considering his face with wide eyes. "Really? Even though..."

"Like I said, it doesn't change much." Finn's eyes drifted down to his feet and he shrugged. "Doesn't change anything, really."

Later on, Poe would never be sure where he plucked up the courage. Maybe it was a moment of madness, or perhaps a rare burst of confidence, one of the two. But whatever the case, he pressed himself up against Finn and kissed him full on the mouth, his eyes shut and grip tight on his jeans. Because like hell he was going to mess up Finn's outfit; he looked far too good in it.

"Is this okay?" Poe breathed as he pulled away, watching Finn's face flicker from surprise to confusion to a triumphant grin that shone like the sun, taking up his entire face, it seemed. "Is it?"

"Perfect." Finn laughed as he pulled Poe into another kiss. "Absolutely perfect."

"Flatterer." A flush colouring his cheeks, Poe grinned and slumped back on the cushions, dragging Finn along with him, their lips pressed together and eyes squeezed shut, eager, searching hands on warm skin. For once, Poe wouldn't mind if this was a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot twist it's 2 AM this time


	6. Chapter 6

"Okay, now you have to gimme a major plot point." Finn insisted. He had just finished up talking about the whole ordeal surrounding the puppy who ran away in grade eight. Odds are there were still a couple posters asking about the whereabouts of Mr. Fluff stuck up on the announcement boards at the super market he and his mom used to go to.

"Major plot points?" Poe settled back against the side of the couch, dragging a hand through his hair. "Hm. I got more of a montage of shit than a particular incident. Did just what parents don't want their kids to do, y'know? Ran away, got knocked up by a deadbeat, kept the kid 'cause I got attached. Dad's never even met Bianca. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know she exists, actually..."

"D'you ever think of calling him? Postcard? Carrier pigeon? It's been fifteen years; how long can he hold a grudge?"

"You'd be surprised. Two things I got from my dad: the schnoz and stubbornness. My mom called him burro."

"Does that mean you were burrito?" Finn teased.

"Shut up..." Poe pinched Finn's ear and climbed up on top of him, a deep, throaty laugh rumbling in his throat as he pulled Finn into a kiss, one of the dozens he had incited in the last hour alone. Finn set aside his grilled cheese sandwich and smiled against Poe's lips. Well, this was a pleasant turn of events.

Actually, Finn's day had taken a rather pleasant turn overall, seeing as he was currently sprawled underneath Poe, another scented candles burning on the counter and Poe's lips on his. Sure, herding around that group of Floridian tourists hadn't been pleasant, but being curled up with a newly acquired boyfriend took away the sting of being asked if he was the janitor. Not all the sting, but some of it.

Aside from the brief intermission to run home and get his meds, Finn had spent basically the whole day in Poe's lap, lounging around watching _An American in Paris_ and _My Fair Lady_ and trying not to make a fool of himself when Poe insisted he try and learn some of the choreography. After he nearly fell on the coffee table, they had decided to call it a day. His ankle still hurt from that.

"If he let himself, I think he'd be proud of you." Finn hummed when Poe pulled away. "I mean, circumstances being what they are..."

"He'd be proud of Bianca, that's for sure. Might even forgive me for having her in the first place. Me? Not so much." Poe shrugged. Seeing that he was needed, Finn set aside his sandwich and pulled Poe upright, pressing their lips together, not minding the grease clinging to Poe's lips. When they pulled away, Poe laughed again, dragging his sleeve across his mouth. "If you think kissing is gonna distract me, you're absolutely right."

"That was the idea." Finn smiled and fiddled with Poe's collar, wondering how to phrase what he wanted to say next. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask - not to assume anything - I was wondering if maybe you want to..." Poe smirked and Finn squirmed like an ant under a magnifying glass, his lower lip between his teeth. "...Maybe have sex, kinda? I mean, we've already had our first date, if you think about it..."

"We already have a daughter, if you think about it. About time we actually have sex." Poe pointed out, cocking an eyebrow in that particular way he had. At four, Bianca had already mastered that look. The Dameron brow, Finn called it. It was pretty distinctive. Poe tapped his shoulder and Finn rolled off of him, trailing over to the bedroom only to be blocked at the door.

"We both get five minutes to take off whatever has to be taken off and clean what has to be cleaned." Poe insisted. "Make yourself pretty, alright?"

"Yessir." Finn winked and Poe slammed the door shut on him, looking around his bedroom in a panic. At least it wasn't that messy. If you ignored the pile of unfolded laundry, the unmade bed, and the desk in the corner that was covered in paperwork and bills and all manner of things Poe had never got around to sorting.

Okay, maybe it was kind of messy.

He slid open the window to let in some air, keeping the shades drawn for obvious reasons. He kicked a bunch of random shit under the bed, smoothed out the blankets, tried to straighten the stacks of documents that looked like they were about to be blown away. Then he started to work his t-shirt up over his head, decided against it, then yanked it off and threw it in the hamper before he could change his mind again.

Unfortunately, while he was wriggling out of his pants, Poe caught a glance of himself in the mirror. You could really tell that he had pushed out a kid when he was shirtless. There were stretch marks running across his sides, and his stomach was paunchy and soft. Not to mention the whole chest situation. Top surgery was expensive. He straightened his back, knowing full well that everything was sagging, but not really having a way to fix that.

Another couple minutes fixing his hair and picking out some underwear that didn't have holes, then a tentative knock made Poe jump, nearly upsetting the paperback novels piled on top of his dresser. Christ, sex was stressful.

"It's been five minutes." Finn's voice was muffled, but he did seem eager. Even so, Poe's hand hesitated on the knob, his thumb rubbing over the tarnished brass. Eventually he worked up the courage to ease it open, stepping back and flopping facedown on the blankets, smiling at Finn, who was down to boxers and the same green singlet from last summer. God, he was lovely. There was something about his broad shoulders, the curve of his chest. There was also a jagged scar cutting across his back, poking out from under the straps of his shirt, but Poe felt like asking questions would ruin the mood.

"Look at you." Poe smiled as Finn reached out and caressed the back of his neck, his face bright. The shirt was staying on, apparently, but Poe wasn't about to complain. Finn could have turned up at his door in a chicken costume and Poe still would have felt a little faint. "If I fuck up, I'm sorry. It's been awhile."

"How long are we talking?" Finn asked, letting Poe ease him down onto the blankets, pressing a kiss to his thumb, imagining he could feel the ridges of his fingerprint before moving on to his lips.

"How old is Bianca?" Poe mumbled as Finn pulled down his briefs. Finn's laughter was warm and deep, sensation as much as it was sound, hanging around in the air for a little longer than you'd expect. Poe smiled into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Finn's waist. He could get used to that laugh.

A whimper got caught in his throat when Finn pulled away, only to turn into a moan when his mouth wound up a little bit...lower. Poe let out a sharp whine and Finn pulled off of his clit, the slick on his smiling lips not at all distracting. "It really has been awhile, huh?" Finn laughed, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

Actually, no one had ever done this for him. Huh. Considering the number of times he had had sex, that was kind of disappointing. Poe pushed himself up onto his elbows to watch Finn suck kisses on his hip before burying his face between his legs again, laving at his folds with all the enthusiasm of a mama cat. Having a shower today had been a good idea, clearly.

"Can I start..." Finn wiggled his fingers and Poe laughed. "I washed my hands." he said hurriedly. Poe just laughed again and spread his legs a bit further, giving Finn better access as he slipped his middle finger inside. "Thanks."

"Why're you thanking me?" Poe motioned for Finn to add another finger, smiling when he obliged. It was kind of embarrassing when the wet noises started up, though, sounds like someone playing in a puddle. But Finn didn't mind, even when slick started to drip down his wrist. "You're real considerate, you know that? My exes just stuck it in."

"That sounds uncomfortable." Finn crooked his fingers and Poe bit his lip, which was probably good? Like hell Finn knew how to interpret any of this. Thank God he had remembered to take his meds; if he hadn't, he probably would have locked himself in the bathroom by now to have a panic attack. What a missed opportunity.

"C'mon, I'm not made of glass. You're acting like you're about to stick a fucking wine bottle in there..." Poe groaned and clenched around Finn's fingers. Wait, he could control it down there? "Asshole."

"Screw you."

"Please do." Finn rolled his eyes and Poe pulled him upright, twining his hands with Finn's slick fingers, the grip tight and desperate on both sides. Poe arched his back, pressed his chest flush against Finn's, wrapped his legs around his hips so he couldn't get away. "Inside? Please?"

"If you insist..." Tentative, Finn pushed down his shorts and pressed his cock up again Poe's folds before his eyes widened with a sudden epiphany. "Shit-condom-I'm a dumbass, fuck-" he babbled, scrambling back and reaching into his backpack, trying to dig up the condoms Rey had decided to shove in his pocket, for some reason. She was pretty invested in getting him laid.

"It's alright, babe. Christ, we did not think this through." Poe snorted. "You'd be a better baby daddy than the last one, though."

Once they were no longer in danger of getting anyone pregnant, Finn pushed inside, trying very hard to stay still. If he moved, he would probably come. That would be unfortunate. "This okay?" 

"Yeah, just-" Finn thrust in a bit too quickly and Poe muffled a groan in his neck. "Easy, kid..."

"Sorry, sorry. I don't know what I'm doing." Finn admitted. "D'you...d'you know if I'm doing this right? At all? I'm at a loss, here."

"Wait, have you ever..." Sheepish, Finn shook his head and twisted up his fingers in the sheets. "You're a virgin?"

"Yeah. Wait, am I still a virgin?" Finn wondered, pulling back to look at where Poe was stretched around his cock. It was just a little bit overwhelming, he decided as he traced a finger over Poe's slick folds, his cheeks heating up. "I mean, this doesn't look all that virginal. Wait, where's the virginity cutoff point?"

"It's a meaningless social construct; don't worry about it." Poe pushed Finn down and climbed on top, rocking his hips and grinding his clit against Finn's crotch, the bedsprings squeaking as they moved. "Just lie there and lemme take care of you, alright? Don't overthink it."

"I overthink things. It's a problem." Finn reached up and started to stroke Poe's chest before deciding against it. "Is...Is that okay?"

"Go ahead." Poe pressed his hands over Finn's, humming comfortably when Finn took the hint and pawed at his tits, grinning like a kid in a candy store with a handful of spare change. "Enjoying yourself?"

Sheepish, Finn nodded and dragged his thumb over one of Poe's nipples, making him arch and preen. His skin glowed in the shafts of sunlight sneaking through the window shades, glinting with the burnished glow of a freshly minted penny. A camera would be a real blessing right now.

"This is nice." Finn decided after awhile, rocking up against Poe. It really was. The sun warmed everything in the room: the sheets that were creasing beneath them, the old paperbacks and their own shuddering breathing. Although being inside someone was - put prosaically - weird. Hot and tight and lovely, of course, but Finn couldn't help but wonder if Poe was enjoying this as much as he was. "There anything I can do?"

"Maybe..." Poe took Finn's hand and guided it to his clit, groaning when it throbbed at the touch, pink and sensitive after being dragged against the coarse hair trailing down from Finn's belly button. He looked down at Finn, knowing that a stupid smile was spreading across his face and not really caring. "Oh, that's nice..."

He must have been telling the truth, because in a few minutes he tilted his head back and gasped, eyelids fluttering and body going tight, pulsing around Finn's cock. Finding that that was too much, Finn cussed and let his hips buck up, making Poe bounce in his lap.

"Shit - Easy there, sweetheart." Poe steadied himself with a laugh, patting Finn's heaving stomach and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose while he gasped, shaking with the last couple aftershocks, warm and buzzing in his spine, his head, making everything feel fuzzy. Must be what a quilt straight out of the dryer felt like. "You okay?"

"Christ..." Finn closed his eyes and slumped back onto the blankets, panting while Poe pulled off the condom and tied it off, tossing it in the trash. He held out his arms and Finn crawled over, happy to curl up like a kitten against Poe's chest. He honest to God felt like purring. "Bianca got your eyes." he mumbled, looking up at Poe and smiling.

Poe kissed him on the nose again and gathered him up in a hug, making a tangle of their arms and legs while Finn played with his chest, kissing and nuzzling and generally making a nuisance of himself. Poe would be perfectly happy to let that continue, but he sort of had a daughter who needed to be picked up. Having his tits sucked would have to wait. Unfortunately.

"You might want to think of putting on a pair of boxers, sweetheart. Don't want you scarring my daughter." Poe laughed, shaking off Finn's clinging arms and gathering his clothes off of the floor. The hoodie he found may have belonged to Finn, but it was Poe's now. They were the same size, anyways. Aside from the shoulders; if he played football Finn wouldn't have needed shoulder pads. "I'll be back in a little while."

"Take your time." Finn burrowed under the blankets again, yawning. Losing one's virginity seemed to be tiring. "I'll be here when you get back."

Poe looked at the lump curled up under the covers and smiled. Well, that was good to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here have the "nothing but smut" chapter


	7. Chapter 7

Finn woke to the evening traffic jam simmering outside, the honking and screeching making for rather striking ambiance. But he was safe from it all, curled up in a squeaky little bed that smelled like warm dust and the cologne Poe had worn to the gala. It took him a moment to orient himself, then he heard a commotion in the hall and smiled into his pillow. Now how could he have forgotten that?

"...And then we went to the park and then Anthony got hit in the head with a basketball and it was funny and I laughed but I also felt bad 'cause Anthony's nice." Bianca's voice was bright and chirpy, a baby bird poking its head out of its shell. "Would you have laughed, Papá?" 

"Maybe, but then I would have helped him." Finn heard Poe say, followed by a delighted squeal from Bianca. Poe had a habit of tossing the kid in the air and catching her right before she hit the ground; Finn wondered if it was a pilot thing. "Oh, shoot. I forgot to get the mail, pumpkin. I'll be back in two seconds. Don't go into my room, okay? It's messy."

"Okay." But the second the front door slammed shut behind Poe, Finn heard a tiptoeing step make its way towards the bedroom, furtive as a mouse. Seems like not being able to listen to instructions was another quirk Poe had passed down to his kid.

Bianca hushed up as she crept inside, her socks slipping on the wooden floor. "Finn? Why're you here? Are you asleep?" she whispered. Desperate not to laugh, Finn pressed his lips together, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to lay still as a statue. The final effect was convincing enough for a four-year-old, at least.

"Finn?" The bedsprings squeaked and a chubby little hand poked at his cheek, pinching his ear when that didn't work. "Finn? Finn, _Finn_..."

Bianca was beginning to sound genuinely concerned for him, the poor thing. Finn was about to sit up and startle her, then she pat him on cheek, shushed him, and rolled out of bed.

"You're under a spell, right? An evil fairy put you under a spell. Don't worry, Finn. I'm gonna fix it." Bianca promised, scampering back out of the room. Slightly concerned that she would come back with a bucket of ice water, Finn started to get up, but he flopped down again when she returned with Poe in tow, already explaining the situation.

"He's not waking up, so you gotta kiss him, Papá, because an evil fairy cursed him. That's how it works in storybooks. True love kiss works in storybooks. I won't look." she added. Finn opened one eye the barest bit to see Bianca covering her face with her hands. She was peeking out from between her fingers, though, hoping to catch the spectacle.

"You waiting for me to go grey?" she demanded when Poe didn't do anything. Now where had she learnt an expression like that?

"Bossy." Poe laughed. A moment later Finn felt lips on his, warm and chapped and already familiar. He arched up into the kiss, opening his eyes to find Poe staring at him with fond, crinkly smile lines puckering his cheeks. "Hi, Sleeping Beauty." 

"Hey. You my Prince Charming?" Poe winked and Finn sat up, laughing when Bianca clambered up between them and curled up on his chest, nodding thoughtfully.

"'Course he is. See? I told you true love's first kiss fixes everything." she said cheerfully. Poe cocked an eyebrow and Finn nodded, biting back a laugh as he stuck Bianca under his arm and accepted Poe's hand. 

"Yes. First kiss. First and only kiss." he agreed, following Poe into the kitchen. It was okay to let Bianca believe that, right?

 

\--------------

 

"Now who are these for?" Baze asked, sticking a couple filler flowers into a wedding arrangement. Finn was in for his daily get-well-soon bouquet, but the week before he had put in an order for something else, too: marigolds and strawflowers and chrysanthemums, all in a vibrant, lively orange.

"Got a date tonight." he admitted. Finn's cheeks heated up when Chirrut wolf-whistled from the backroom. Eavesdropping seemed to be a habit of his. "Hi, Chirrut. How's it going?"

"Baze forgot our anniversary." Chirrut complained. Offended, Baze threw a wilted flower at the door, prompting Chirrut to poke his head out the door and jab him with his cane.

"No, you just got the dates wrong. It's next week, you." 

"No, it was last week."

"Next week, _Báichī-"_

While they bickered in Mandarin, Finn shook his head and started to fiddle with his mother's bouquet of Black-eyed Susans. Only a month until she had to be moved to longterm care, only a month until Finn would barely be able to see her. But he didn't really want to think about that, right now. After all, he had a date with Poe tonight, thus the orange bouquet. He had been roped into a launch party for some pretentious art exhibit and needed a date. The flowers were more of an apology for dragging Poe along, really. But they also served as a one-and-a-half-month anniversary gift.

"I got Baze flowers when we met, you know." Chirrut continued after a brief, friendly shouting match. He had given up his stance on the anniversary question after Baze pulled out the braille calendar he kept under the counter for these types of disagreements. It was kind of amusing how often those came along, actually. "It was very romantic."

"You tripped on me and I landed facedown in some weeds on the side of the road." 

"Yes, our first date was lovely." Chirrut continued, paying Baze no mind as he carried out a tray of chrysanthemums. "I could have puked, it was so romantic." 

"You fought a guy in the parking lot."

"Romantic."

"We ended up in jail."

"It brought us closer."

"I should get going." Finn interjected, sliding the money over to Baze. "Thanks, guys. Hey, are delphiniums in season? She liked those..."

"I'll get you some for next week." Baze promised as Finn trotted out the door. He tried to get back to work, then suddenly Chirrut's wiry frame was pressed up against his back, hands slipping up under his t-shirt. "Off, you."

"He got laid, didn't he?" Chirrut started to rock Baze back and forth, humming to himself. "That was a nice bouquet you got him, you know. Smelled lovely." Baze tried not to smile at the praise, he really did. "I wonder, if you picked a bouquet for the two of us, what would be in it?"

"Plastic flowers from the dollar store." Baze said bluntly. Then Chirrut swatted him with his cane and Baze relented. "Alright, alright. Bluebells, I remember you telling me you like the smell of those. Cherry blossoms, dodecatheon, maybe. Add some texture."

Chirrut nodded in approval and Baze poked a stray rosebud behind his ear, sparing a moment to turn and kiss his cheek, glancing hopefully at the clock on the wall and coming up about thirty minutes short.

"D'you want to close up early?" he breathed, putting down his clippers with shaky hands.

_"Nǐ zěnme kàn?"_

 

\------------

 

"Sorry I keep dragging you to this shit..." Finn accepted the chipped purple mug Poe handed him, letting the lemon and honey calm his nerves, smooth out the creases in his brow like a steam press on a tablecloth. Christ, he hated parties. He could be charming as all hell in the moment, sure, but the second he got home he just wanted to curl up in a corner and never interact with anyone ever again. 

Except Poe. Finn was okay with having him around.

"Nah, it's no problem. Besides, I like seeing the look on Hux's face when he sees us being lovey-dovey." Once his pretty little bouquet was safe in an old glass with a crack running down the side, Poe flopped down in Finn's lap with a yawn. "But he's got it out for you, baby. Watch yourself."

"Yessir." Finn promised. Satisfied, Poe nodded, but he had to bite back a sigh when he saw the custom suit jacket Finn had left draped over a kitchen chair. It had been another evening spent adrift in a sea of satin and bubbly champagne, a world he didn't really belong to, as foreign as the surface of Mars. Still, he felt bad, what with Finn bringing him places like that. Poe didn't have much else to offer other than hikes on the hidden trails his mom had shown him, or blueberry pancakes and a place to crash when Finn didn't feel like sitting in traffic for an hour. Beluga caviar just wasn't in his price range.

Poe tried to push it all down for the moment, nuzzling up against Finn's sweatshirt and looking around the living room. It had been a little over a month, but already Finn had crept into the apartment, bits of himself that were always around. There was a box of his tea on the counter beside a little jar of honey; he was always forgetting his keys on the counter. Odds and ends, really, but Poe liked it.

"What's wrong?" Finn mumbled after awhile, poking Poe's cheek. "Usually at this point you'd be judging Hux's outfit or complaining about the food. At least they had little cannoli cups."

"Yeah, I had about five of those." Poe admitted. Finn pat him on the stomach and he snorted, relaxing the barest bit against Finn's chest. "I dunno, just...why are you with me, exactly? I don't have money, or a great body, or a particularly stellar personality. Christ, the first thing I ever did was try and stab you." Poe laughed ruefully. He thought of the red marks on his hips, indents left over from jeans he was trying to make last for just another year or so. "I got a rundown apartment and unresolved issues, that's what I've got..."

"And I got incredibly lucky." Finn said softly, tilting his mug back and forth, letting the steam fog up his glasses. "This...this is good. What we've got." He ventured a smile and a nod. "This is good."

"Yeah, it is." Poe decided, the relief in his chest like a cool cloth on a burn. He sat up and kissed Finn on the forehead, making him grin. "Tea and then bed, alright? Can't have you going to work hungover."

"Kiss Bianca for me." Finn yawned as he shuffled off. Poe smiled, but a moment later his phone rang. Not wanting to wake anyone, Poe scrambled over and picked up without bothering to check who it was. If Bianca got out of bed at this hour, they'd never get her back.

"Hello?" Poe began. For a moment there was nothing but shaky breathing and static, the intro to a horror movie, basically. Poe was pretty sure he was being prank-called, but something gave him pause. May as well give it one more shot. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Hi, um, I...I know it's late, I'm sorry..."

The voice was older, tired. But still familiar through the crackles and distortion, like a snapshot of a house you used to live in, back when you were too young to make proper memories. Poe felt six again, sitting in his parents' basement on that godawful carpet, a 70's shag abomination of red and gold. It looked like something that belonged in a casino. The TV would be on in the background, his comic books and Barbies strewn across the floor, and his mom would be tinkering at the workbench, hunched over and mumbling to herself. 

Christ, Poe hadn't thought about that carpet in years.

"Is...is this..." The voice faltered again and Poe bit his lip, not knowing what to say. "Is there a Pauline, here? Dameron. Pauline Dameron. That was her maiden name, at least. I don't know if anything's changed since then..." The voice paused, the breathing laboured. "Look, this is strange, I know. I'm sorry. But I just...I'm her..." 

The temptation to hang up made Poe's fingers twitch. He very nearly wound up hitting the button, but stopped when his eyes rested on the pompom caterpillar Bianca had made at pre-school the week before. His gut twisted up, writhing like a snake beneath his skin.

A decade and a half had gone by; God knows what had changed since then.

His palms were clammy, and Poe was pretty sure he was going to puke up all of those cannoli. Nevertheless, he took a deep breath and tilted his head against the fridge, raising his phone back to his ear with unsteady hands. 

"Dad?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day i will post at a reasonable hour. one day.


	8. Chapter 8

Finn was rolling around in his office chair, trying to see how far away he could get from the wastebasket and still make the shot. He finally managed from across the room, just as Hux stepped through the door, a tight, sour look on his face. That wasn't really surprising, though; he always looked like he had just stepped in some dog crap on the side of the road.

"Is this really the time to be acting childish?" Hux snapped, seeing what Finn was up to. His thin lips twisted into a sneer as he spoke, as though the sight of someone having fun upset his stomach. It might also have something to do with the museum director giving Finn a raise, edging him a little bit closer to matching Hux's salary. Hopefully there was a promotion on the horizon, but Hux's performance reports might slow that down.

"It's my lunch break." Finn nodded at the half-eaten tuna sandwich on his desk, sitting beside a lumpy little vanilla cupcake, courtesy of Bianca. Poe had gotten into the habit of making him bagged lunches whenever he stayed part of the night at Finn's place, leaving them on the counter for him to find when he woke up in the morning. Poe even went so far as to draw big Sharpie hearts on the bags. Those caused quite the stir in the lunchroom. "What's the problem?"

Finn half expected Hux to answer _you_ , but instead, he ushered someone else into the office, someone tall and very nearly as pasty as Hux. Was there a vampire conference in town?

"Dr. Ren." As he introduced himself, Hux's vampire buddy stepped forwards, jabbing his arm out the way someone would wield a sword. Real friendly type, clearly.

"Charmed." Finn lied, getting up and taking his hand. This Ren guy had a very aggressive handshake. It was almost like playing tug-of-war with a bunch of angry fourth graders.

"He will be acting as your consultant for the next few months, making sure you make appropriate decisions." Hux continued, voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "That display you set up on residential schools wasn't in good taste, you know? I haven't been satisfied with your work, as of late. "

"Funny, everyone else has." After slipping on his glasses, Finn tilted his head to the side, considering Ren's slicked hair, his tailored black suit. Had he never heard of a colour scheme? "There's a few sponsors already offering to pitch in, have it run again next year."

"And other sponsors would like you to set aside your political agenda and simply set up the exhibits the way you are supposed to." Hux said shortly. He said other sponsors, but he meant one in particular.

Snoke was an eccentric old businessman, directly descended from the first settlers in New France. Upholding his ancestors' so-called noble legacy was a hobby of his, and he had the money to indulge it, paying museums to boost his ego. Finn hated bringing school groups through, having them see that display reminding them of all the 'good' those clever Europeans did.

Hux agreed with Snoke, of course. The people needed to see both sides, he said. The settlers had only wanted to make things better for those poor savages. And Finn wasn't exaggerating; Hux had actually said savages.

Finn wasn't quite sure why someone chose to work in an anthropology museum when they didn't particularly like the civilizations they were supposed to be studying, but to each their own. In Finn's opinion, all the settlers had brought were guns and an oppressive system of government, but Hux just wouldn't listen to him.

"And the doctorate is in..."

"History. You have a bachelors?" Ren added, looking at the certificate that Rey had insisted on hanging up above Finn's desk. "Not the most impressive qualifications, but it'll do, I guess."

"Yeah, well. Say, how many museums have you worked in?" There was silence and Finn cocked his eyebrow. "But you're more qualified?"

"Yes, he is. Could do your job very easily, I think." Hux decided, striding out the door with Ren at his side. Once they were gone Finn leant back in his chair and tossed another wad of paper at the basket, cussing when he missed.

This would be a tough couple months; he could already tell.

 

\------------

 

The tap was leaking again, of course. Poe had a billion things to dust and scrub and scour, and of course the tap had to start leaking again. As if Kes needed more proof that his kid had fucked his life up. Couldn't even make a sink work right.

Poe knew that he was making a mountain out of a molehill, but seeing your dad for the first time in over a decade was a rather nerve-wracking experience.

After work, he had spent a good two hours cleaning and rearranging, trying to make sense of the clutter that had somehow accumulated over the past four years. After considering it, Poe figured it may be best to stow away Bianca's crafts and toys, keep her door firmly shut. It was hard hiding all trace of her, though; the kid had spread like a weed infestation.

The call he had endured a couple days ago still throbbed in his head, left him tense as a sailor on a stormy sea. Going for coffee had been discussed, then they contemplated meeting at the big library downtown. But in the end, both ideas wound up being scrapped. No sense in causing a scene if either of them started yelling. Didn't want civilians to be drawn into the fray when lattes started flying.

There was a tentative tap on the door, the sound matching Poe's own unease. He set down the screwdriver he had been fiddling with and shuffled over, staring at the deadbolt before sliding it back and opening the door, staring at a man who was staring at an address scribbled on the back of a receipt.

"Is this..." Kes' voice faltered and he fell silent for a moment, his eyes wide behind his crooked glasses. "Pauline?"

"It's Poe, now." he said quietly. For a moment Kes drew back, then he seemed to gather up his wits, although his brow was still creased up.

"Oh." Another moment of radio silence, just the floorboards creaking beneath their feet, drops of water hitting the stainless steel. Poe really needed to fix that leak. Then Kes nodded ever so slowly. Even after fifteen years, it seemed he was still getting used to the idea.

"Do you...do you want to come in?" Poe offered. Kes nodded again and Poe followed closely, looking him over with a fair bit of wonder. They looked awfully similar, only Kes was taller and lanky, almost as though someone took Poe and stretched him out like that kid in _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_. It had been established a long time ago that Poe had inherited his mother's figure.

While Poe poured out a couple mugs of proper coffee (Finn had gifted him a bag and Luke had lent him a coffee grinder), Kes set himself down on the couch, his hands trembling on his knees. His and Shara's wedding rings were still hanging around his neck, just the way Poe remembered. They really only could be there, seeing as Kes' ring finger had been shot off while he was in Vietnam.

When Poe was little, Kes had convinced him that it had been bitten off by a werewolf, which was why he was never home at night. Really, he hadn't been around because he was on the night shift again, but Poe couldn't have known that at five years old.

"Is it just you here?" Kes asked, giving the room a good long look. Not that there was much to see in the first place; at least it was clean.

"At the moment." Poe said vaguely. That was true, technically. "So how...how'd you find me?"

"It's a long story." Kes sighed, accepting the coffee Poe handed him. "Gist of it's that one of your mom's old squadron mates taught you during basic. We happened on each other at the supermarket a few years back. He remembered you, said you were the brightest kid in the course." Kes traced the rim off his mug and huffed out a breath. "Kinda got sent on a wild goose chase, after that. He knew someone on your base, so I found her, then she never got back to me, so I had to find someone else..."

The story was like a convoluted treasure map, twisting and tangling across the span of a decade. There had been false leads, awkward phone calls. Kes had had to learn how to use email because of this mess.

"...then Han gave me your number, and now I'm here." Kes concluded after another few minutes. Poe rested against the kitchen table, looking down at the coffee that had gone cold in his mug. That was a shame; he'd been looking forward to drinking a properly brewed cup. "And now you're..."

"I transitioned, yeah. I did tell you I would, remember?" When he was sixteen, when he heard the word for the first time. "I still don't get it, though. You never did anything. You never tried to help. You ignored it, and I never knew why."

"Polly, you know why. It's just surgeries and chemicals. I didn't think it would help you feel better about yourself. I didn't want you spending so much time in the hospital, relying on a drug for the rest of your life."  

"'Course I rely on it. You do, too. Try and take the testosterone outta your system, see how you feel."

Poe tried to keep his voice steady, but he didn't like explaining this stuff. It had been awhile since anyone had called him Polly, too. That had been his mom's nickname for him.

"And I haven't even had any surgeries. It's just a shot every other week. Diabetics need more shots than I do. And I don't see you knocking the needles outta their hands and telling 'em to find some other way to deal."

There was a second when Poe thought the coffee would wind up flying, then Kes' face crumpled like paper and he seemed to collapse inward on himself, exhausted, sinking into the couch like it was quicksand. All of a sudden he looked his age, like a tired old man who had lost everybody, who had been alone for far too long.

 "Christ, you're just like your mother." Trembling, Kes set his mug on the coffee table and pressed his hands to his face, shaking his head. "Lost her, lost you. Then your Abuelo died two years after you left. I'm fucking lonely, dammit. All I got left is the dog. And he's on his last legs..."

Poe had seen his dad cry before. Silent tears had rolled down his cheeks at Shara's funeral, leaving his eyes red for days afterwards. He had cried with Poe's aunt when her son left them. But Poe had never seen him sob for himself, for the weight the world had put on his shoulders, for the fact that no one was around to dry his tears.

"I didn't come here to argue. I didn't. I just had to see you. I've tried so hard to find you." Kes choked out. "I didn't even want you to come home, really. I just had to know where you were, what had happened to you. I had to know you were happy. All this time I've been worrying I'd fucked you up already. I just had to know you were happy, wherever or whoever you were, I wanted you to be happy..."

Hesitant, Poe crept closer, sitting down beside Kes and squeezing his shoulder, getting his attention. "I'm happy." he promised. It was true, too. He had Bianca and Finn, and now he had his dad back, too. "I'm the happiest I've ever been."

"You...Really?" The tearful smile that spread across Kes' face when Poe nodded made his heart ache. Kes wiped his tears and pulled Poe into a hug, desperate to get his arms around him, to patch up the past decade from the ground up. "Then I'm happy. I missed you, Poe." Kes croaked. "You don't know how much I missed having you around."

"Same here, old man." Poe twisted his fingers in Kes' shirt, barely believing this was real, that his father was here, holding him, loving him. His dad loved him.

Well, that was a relief.

"Y'know, I was real close to finding you a few years back - four years, I think?" Kes said after awhile, his voice hoarse. "Then you just disappeared. You just mustered out, and I thought I had lost you. Any particular reason you left?" he asked, pulling away to consider Poe with red eyes. "Just curious." 

"Uh..." Poe struggled to answer, then he heard familiar footsteps in the hall, Finn's shuffling, Wednesday night gait. He had been in charge of Bianca for the afternoon, keep her out of Poe's way while he scoured everything. He hadn't expected them home until late, but, Poe realised with a start, it was now well into the evening. He heard Finn's key scratching in the lock and sighed. Well, Kes would find out the reason in a minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look parenting


	9. Chapter 9

Finn hummed a lullaby while he carried Bianca upstairs, adjusting her head so she wouldn't drool on his favourite blazer. It was well past her six o'clock bedtime, and the two flights of stairs up to Poe's apartment proved to be simply too much for the poor thing.

Bianca had insisted on following him to the hospital after he picked her up from school, bringing along the cookie from her lunch box because she was certain Angela would wake at the smell of chocolate chips. After all, she had told him, Bianca woke up when Poe made pancakes. This couldn't be all that different, could it?

Unfortunately, that didn't work. But Bianca wasn't about to give up hope quite yet.

"Who's her true love?" she had asked, sitting on the side of the bed and slipping a bracelet onto Angela's wrist. She had made it in class out of choice beads she had hoarded over the past few months. "Maybe she'll wake up if we find her true love and she gets a kiss from 'em. So who's her true love?"

"Her true love?" Finn tilted his head and sighed. "Bonnie." he said fondly, tacking up a drawing of the tea roses sitting in the pot by the bed. He drew pictures of Baze's best work, wanting his mom to see them once they wilted.

"Who's Bonnie?"

"My mom's true love; weren't you listening?" Finn ruffled Bianca's hair, making her giggle. For awhile, he hadn't understood who exactly Bonnie was, then he caught her and Angela kissing under the mistletoe. That sure had gotten the cogs turning.

When Finn was eight years old, his mother had come back from a literary conference in the States with a southern belle on her arm, all curly red hair and outspoken opinions. Wherever Bonnie was, life was grand and loud and sweet with the smell of pecan pie and peach cobbler. She was always poking and pinching at Angela, complaining about how skinny she was, swearing she'd get some meat on Finn's bones because it just didn't seem to stick on his mother.

"That's the trouble with journalists," she would explain, squeezing Angela with her big, pillowy arms. "All that stress and running around makes 'em skinny l'il beanpoles."

Bonnie had been a mysterious fixture of Finn's childhood, popping up on long weekends and spending the summer with them, fixing him huge breakfasts of strawberry buckwheat pancakes and fried apples that tickled the roof of his mouth with cinnamon and sugar. She bought him sketchbooks and pencils, and gave him art lessons every chance she got.

Finn loved Bonnie with all this heart. He just couldn't figure out why she never stayed if she loved them so much. After all, he had pointed out to her one day at breakfast, she was wearing a wedding ring.

"Bless your heart, baby. As much as I wish it was your mom who popped the question, the ring's from my hubby. He's down in Mississippi, likely entertaining that secretary of his. He's got enough money to burn a wet mule, but that's about it. Thinks I'm coming up here to paint. Which I am," she added, looking over at Angela. "Only I ain't painting the scenery."

At the time, Finn hadn't understood what she was getting at, or why his mother had to leave the room, shaking her head and giggling. Some thing were just beyond him.

Finn blinked out of his thoughts and came back to the present, realising that he was standing on Poe's welcome mat, his keys already in the lock. Autopilot kicked in after particularly long days, right when Finn needed it. Useful trick, that.

There were voices behind the door, but Finn figured it was just Luke dropping in, talking about engines and horsepower and what-have-you. So he was a tad bit confused, stepping inside to find the apartment actually clean, Poe sitting on the couch with a guy who looked awfully similar to him. Same nose, same eyes; even the looks of surprise on their faces when they saw Finn in the doorway were awfully similar.

"Um..." Finn wasn't all that sure why he opened his mouth, not having much of anything to contribute. "Hi?"

"Hello." The guy sitting with Poe piped up, though he looked equally as confused by the whole mess. He and Finn both turned to Poe, who could hopefully connect the two of them, somehow.

"Finn, this..." Poe cleared his throat and got to his feet, taking Finn's hand, pleading with his eyes. "This is my dad, Kes. Dad, this is my...boyfriend." he concluded, stepping a little closer to Finn, like he was searching for some sense of safety, an anchor in a storm. "And my daughter." he added, even softer.

The guy on the couch - Poe's dad? - his eyes widened and he sat up straighter, looking at the back of Bianca's head, the curly hair she seemed to have inherited from him. Only hers had a lot less grey.

"Christ, I've been gone too long." He hesitated before coming over, his eyes on Bianca. Finn handed her over to Poe and stepped back, letting the Damerons all get reacquainted with one another. "How old is she?" Kes ran his fingers through Bianca's curls, tensing when she stirred in her sleep.

"Four. She's why I mustered out. Didn't think flying would be a good idea, while I was pregnant."

"Wait, you..." Bewildered, Kes took a step back and leant up against the kitchen counter. He wasn't even a deer in the headlights; he looked more like a deer who had already been hit by the car. "You're throwing everything at me at once, kid. Jesus..."

"I mean, it has been a couple years. You've missed a few things." Poe pointed out. A warm chuckle rumbled in Kes' throat, and Finn suddenly understood where Poe had inherited his deep-bellied laugh. Finn took his hand and Poe smiled into Bianca's curls, curling his fingers around Finn's. "D'you want to come back sometime this week? You could meet Bianca?"

"That sounds...yeah. That sounds nice." Kes turned to Finn next, offering a smile. "So...the two of you?"

"Yessir." Finn shook Kes' hand, not really minding the fact that he had been sidelined for most of the conversation. Bianca was really the star of the show, as it should be. "Good to meet you."

"Same here. I should let you three go, I guess." Kes' gaze lingered on Bianca for a moment, like a kid looking at a Christmas gift they weren't allowed to open for another week. Then he squeezed Poe's shoulder and smiled. "Don't be a stranger." he ordered. "Same goes for you, new guy."

Finn smirked and nodded, taking Bianca back while Poe saw his dad out the door, exchanging a couple quick words Finn couldn't quite catch. He had taken Spanish in twelfth grade, but he had never really gotten further than asking where the bathroom was.

"That went well." Finn said comfortably, once Kes had been seen out and the door was chained and bolted again. There were at least five different types of locks on it; Poe liked security. "You don't think so?"

After kissing Finn's cheek, Poe grumbled something about nearly giving himself a panic attack and stumbled over to the bedroom, shedding his clothes as he went. Well, it was Finn's turn putting Bianca to bed anyways.

 

  
\--------------

 

  
"Sure, that sounds great..." After nearly dropping his phone in the sink, Poe stuck it under the side of his baseball cap, not caring it would look stupid. After all, Bianca judged him no matter what he did, and Finn was too deep into this relationship to really care what Poe did behind closed doors. "You're sure about this though, dad? This is pretty fancy."

Kes had gotten his hands on tickets to the ballet that was rolling through town, a performance of Swan Lake in one of the swankier theatres downtown. All Poe knew was that he would have to wear a suit again. But at this point he and Finn basically shared a wardrobe, so finding suitable attire was a bit less stressful.

"Don't worry, kid. Didn't pay a cent. I got 'em on a radio show. I call in for contests a lot. Host knows me by name at this point. Got a lot of good stuff over the years, actually. Only problem is they came in packs of two so I had no one to go with. I just gave 'em away for Christmas, usually. Kinda awkward, 'cause one time the coworker I gave these tickets to listened to the same radio station..."

While his dad chattered, Poe stuck Bianca's strawberry jam sandwich into a plastic container, only to notice that the lid had a crack running down the middle of it. He patched it up with some tape and stuck it in the fridge beside a couple of Finn's homemade cookies and a slightly squished juice box. They were running low on milk again. Well, Poe didn't really mind eating his cereal with water. Knockoff cornflakes were already bland, anyways. 

After smoothing out a couple details Poe tossed his phone on the couch and went back to washing dishes, his heart racing and fingers trembling on the sponge. Having an actively present dad was still overwhelming, even a week later. Who knows how long it would take for Poe to get used to it.

"Bianca? Get ready for bed, alright? Abuelo's coming over early tomorrow." he reminded her, rubbing off his hands on his jeans and poking his head into her little bedroom. It was a glorified closet, really, but it was painted a cheerful lavender and there were glow in the dark stars on her ceiling and walls. He hoped she was alright with living in a Harry Potter cupboard. 

Wondering how they would manage when she was older, Poe found her twirling around what little space she had, flaunting a pink and white dress that stuck out like a tutu around her knees. After a second, Poe realised it was the exact dress she had begged him for a couple weeks ago. She had seen it in a boutique window as they were running to catch the bus, one of those frilly little places Poe could never bring her to, decorated with costume gems and smelling like cupcake perfume.

They entranced Bebe, but Poe could barely hold back his indignation about being expected to pay over fifty bucks for a dress that barely had enough fabric for a dishtowel.

"Papá! Look what Finn got for me!" Bianca flounced over, looking like a cherry blossom blown off its branch. "It's for when Abuelo comes over and takes us to the play. I dunno what the play's about, but there's swans and ballerinas. And so Finn got me a dress like ballerinas got. Is it pretty? It's poofy."

"It's beautiful, pumpkin." And it wasn't held together by bobby pins like her other dresses. She twirled again and Poe sighed, making his way over to his room after helping her into bed and reading a story. For whatever reason, that had made him feel a little bit shit.

Even seeing Finn sprawled across his bed like a pinup girl didn't make Poe feel better, which was a shock. Poe's A-2 jacket was wrapped around his shoulders, but it was hard to believe he was trying to keep warm, considering the fact that he didn't have on a shirt or anything down below but a pair of briefs. Finn just knew that jacket suited him far too well.

"Hey, babe." Finn tilted his head back and smiled, but it flickered when he saw Poe's face. "There something wrong?"

"Well..." Poe sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed, relaxing when Finn rubbed the back of his neck. "Can you..." Christ, this was hard to say. "Can you hold off buying things for Bianca? Just...just for a little while."

"How come?" Finn set aside his book and sat up, squeezing Poe's hand. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm alright. I just can't..." He stared at the clock on the wall, the one he still hadn't changed after Daylight Savings. It was barely seven, but Poe was already exhausted, his eyes like lead weights and body already going pliant against Finn. Why did he have to be so cosy? "I can't..."

Finn pressed a kiss to his cheek, and suddenly Poe was wide awake, his lower lip trembling as his thoughts slowly turned to words.

"I just...I can't give Bianca the things you can. As much as I wish I could, I can't." Poe pushed back his hair and shook his head, his pulse beginning to throb under his hand. Suddenly it all came spilling out, a drainpipe after a storm.

"It's a weird thing to get worked up over, I know, but I hate it. I can't just give her anything. I'll have to push her to get scholarships because that's the only way she'll be able to afford school. She won't be able to go to movies with her friends because I can't give her any allowance. She won't be able to buy stupid shit for prom or have a big party for her sixteenth birthday. I never meant to make such a mess of her life. I never meant for that..."

Finn opened his arms and Poe curled against him without resistance, squeezing his eyes shut and clinging to the worn leather of their jacket. "You didn't make a mess of it, Poe. You didn't." Finn soothed. "She's the happiest kid I've ever met. You didn't make a mess of it..."

"Can't help but feel that I did. Shit's been so easy since you've been around, y'know? Just...little things. I haven't had to skip meals or go off T. It's been too easy, almost. I feel like I'm taking advantage of you. The fact you have money."

Poe wiped his face on his sleeve and shrugged, letting Finn pull off his hat, place a kiss on the crown of his head. Thank God baldness didn't run in the family; considering the stress Poe was constantly dealing with, by now he'd be in the same boat as Professor X. And that was not a look he saw himself pulling off.

"Y'know, her third birthday, I was flat broke. And the third birthday's the first one you really remember, isn't it? Everyone bought her a gift but me. Leia and Han, Jess, Snap, everybody. So I stayed up all night and drew her a fucking colouring book on an old stack of drafting paper. And you know I can't draw."

That had been a long night. Poe had stayed up until sunrise, trying to replicate the illustrations from Bianca's favourite storybook, sitting on the ground with the pages spread out around him because the kitchen table was covered in all the gifts he could never give her. The heating had been shut off, and Poe had piled everything on Bianca for the night; blankets, sweaters, towels, everything.

For hours he had sat freezing on the floor, wearing nothing but boxers and a fraying singlet while a snowstorm raged outside, his pencil in one hand and a secondhand copy of Beauty and the Beast in the other, trying to understand how to put what was in your head on the page.

"And then the next day, when she was opening all the presents, I could've cried. She liked it, Finn. She actually liked it. What I could give her was enough. I was enough. I think it's here, somewhere..." Poe crawled over Finn and ran his fingers across the bookshelf. It was fit to bursting with books and folders and cardboard boxes filled with stuff Poe had never gotten around to sorting. Who knew what was in there.

After awhile, Poe unearthed a stack of pages, bound neatly with fraying purple twine. Finn pulled him into his lap again and Poe opened the book, flipping through the faded pages that still smelled like crayon wax and glue.

"Beauty and the Beast is her favourite." he provided as they looked at the drawings. Finn nodded, tracing the lopsided faces, the clumsily drawn hands. Poe watched him carefully, his brow furrowed. "I know it's mostly my pride. I know she shouldn't be denied stuff because I hate asking for help. It's just...I'm her father, aren't I? I should be able to give her all that stuff. I shouldn't have to rely on anybody else. I shouldn't need you to do so much for me."

"But we're _supposed_ to do stuff for each other. You're my boyfriend, remember? Mutual support and all that. It's not that difficult of a concept to grasp." Finn set aside the book and cupped Poe's cheeks in his hands. "And you give me things, too. Things money can't buy." Things like coming home late at night to a bed that was already warm, like hugs and smiles and unexpected kisses. Well, technically you could buy kisses, but these ones were special.

"Guess I've been on my own for too long. Kinda...kinda forgot how to trust anything aside from my gut." Poe admitted. "It's weird now. Having you around is weird. Fucking wonderful, obviously, but weird."

"Get used to someone loving you, Dameron. 'Cause I plan on doing it for awhile." Finn started to laugh, but it was cut short, his eyes going wide as he considered what he had just said. "Oops."

"You love me?" Poe ventured, hardly daring to believe it. "Wait, really?"

Slowly, Finn eased his mouth shut and nodded. "I love you." he said plainly, smiling at Poe like a child caught with a love note to their crush. Poe would question Finn's reasoning, or taste, or whether or not he was as blind as his florist, but instead he took a deep breath, rolling around the phrase in his skull, letting it settle, letting it set down roots. No sense in immediately tearing it down; might as well give it time to grow, see if it would blossom.

"I love you, too." The words seemed to warm Poe's chest, restart his heart like an electric shock, making it leap against his ribcage. A smile spread across Finn's face and he laughed again, letting Poe push him down onto the bed and settle on his hips, his shirt already halfway over his head, the elation of hearing the words - for the first time from someone outside of family - carrying him as he bent down and pressed a chaste kiss to the tip of Finn's nose. "Now prove it, why don't you?"

Suffice to say, Poe's plans of going to bed early went out the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk man ive never tapped into the "finn's two moms" headcanon. so here.


	10. Chapter 10

Surprisingly, Ren proved to be very hard to work with.

He tried to veto every single project Finn had been working on. Made "suggestions" which would do nothing but complicate things. Insisted that there should be an extra door price for certain exhibits. And of course, Hux agreed with every single one of his little adjustments. But the worst part was the phoning in on Finn's days off.

He finally gets a boyfriend, and suddenly his Saturdays are up for grabs. Couldn't Ren have come along back when Finn spent his weekends sitting in that drugstore down the street? At this point the owners knew him by name, seeing as he spent his spare time dicking around on the scratched up pinball machine in the back. The owner's daughter also might have had a crush on him, ditto for their son. It wasn't the worst way to spend his time, but cuddling Poe was better.

Speaking of which, he rolled over and wrapped his arms around Poe's middle, sucking a kiss on his neck. Neither of them had bothered to get dressed after the antics from the night before, so nothing was stopping Finn from leaning forwards and nipping at Poe's bare chest, making him squirm awake under Finn's lips.

"You making pancakes?" he asked, letting Poe rut up against his morning wood with the lack of purpose that comes with Sunday mornings. He rested a hand on Poe's hip and rocked along just as lazily, knowing this wouldn't go any further and not really caring. He had had his fill the night before, after all.

"That's how you wake me up? No _I love you?_ Not even a good morning?" Poe complained around a yawn. "Good to know where your priorities lie."

In an attempt to redeem himself, Finn dragged his lips across Poe's cheek, smiling when he reached his lips, chapped and smooth as silk at the same time. A contradiction if Finn had ever seen one, but he was willing to let it slide.

Unfortunately, just as Poe was rolling on top of him, Finn's phone started ringing, the Indiana Jones theme song blaring and interrupting their early morning stupor. He groaned and pulled Poe closer, flipping the two of them as he grabbed his phone off his bedside table. Unfortunately, he didn't think he would have the opportunity to take advantage of the fact he had the high ground.

"Hello?" Finn bit back a groan and buried his face in Poe's chest, trying very hard not to cuss Ren out. Why the fuck did Finn have to be there on Sunday morning? It made no sense. "Really? You scheduled the meeting with the donors for today? And I'm going in your stead why, exactly?"

While Finn attempted to carry on a civil conversation and get dressed, Poe rolled out of bed, reaching down to touch his toes. Sleeping with Finn was great, but he did have a tendency to cling, and being rather heavy, it was like having a teddy bear made out of bricks. 

"I'm gonna borrow your hot water again." he mumbled, pressing a sympathetic kiss to Finn's forehead while he pulled on a soft pink blazer. The only good thing about Ren was the fact that he only dressed in black. Made Finn's wardrobe seem all the brighter. "We can have pancakes for dinner."

"Can't. We have that thing at Hux's." Finn groaned, tossing his phone onto the bed. Hux had extended an invitation to some pretentious company party at his place, purely on principle, and Finn had accepted for the same reason. "This is too much time in a suit."

"You look good, though." Poe pointed out through the bathroom door, his muffled voice competing with the water hitting the porcelain tub. According to Poe, Finn and Rey's apartment had very good water pressure. "Wear that purple one tonight, alright? I like that one..."

"If you say so." Finn yawned, wandering into the living room. At least that one was clean. 

Bianca was curled up on the couch, right where Finn had set her down the night before. By all means, she seemed to like it almost better than a bed.

"Sleeping on a couch's different." she had explained to him. "Beds are boring. Sleeping on a couch is like an adventure. Tía Rey's got all her plants here, so it's like I'm in a enchanted forest. And I'm close to the kitchen." The joy on Bianca's face when she said that was like nothing Finn had ever seen. She really was her father's daughter.

"What do I do with you?" Finn wondered, looking down at Bianca. She curled up a little tighter and he ruffled her hair, letting it slip and roll through his fingers. He had been supposed to take care of her while Poe ran to the shop for a little, but he was pretty sure that plan was out the window, now. He was about to worry, then salvation came in the form of a shuffling step in the hall and a curt knock on the door. Finn recognised that knock; it tried so hard to be grumpy.

"They mixed up our mail again." Baze grumbled, thrusting a couple envelopes into Finn's hand as soon as he opened the door. In the morning he always looked especially rough, his hair like a lion's mane and scarred face scrunched up as he tried adjusting to the sunlight. But in the end, it was all counteracted by the baby pink kitten mug he was holding. Chirrut had bought it for his birthday as a joke, but Baze had grown rather attached. That humanized him a fair bit.

Bianca blinked up at the grouchy old man who had appeared in the doorway, dragging along her teddy bear to investigate. He was chatting absently with Finn about whatever it was adults talk about. Bianca wasn't quite sure what that was. Taxes? Probably taxes.

"Hi." Peeking out from behind Finn's knee, Bianca stuck out her arm the way Poe did when he was talking to clients. Very professional. When the man didn't respond she poked his leg, insisting he follow what she believed was protocol. "You're supposed to shake it, mister."

"Hm." Clearly holding back a laugh, Baze crouched and shook Bianca's outstretched hand, looking far more serious about it than Finn could have managed. Bianca's delicately tapered fingers - Finn's mom would have called them pianist fingers - looked like they belonged to a doll, when compared to Baze's work-hardened mitts. "And who are you?"

"Bianca. I like your cup." she yawned. Baze handed it over and she smiled, sitting down on the floor and running her fingers over the little pink ears sticking up from the rim. She thought it made the cat look like it was listening for a mouse. A smile spread across her face and she giggled, tracing the glossy whiskers and eyes and the cute little nose that made up the cat's face. A small grin quirked at Baze's lips when Bianca started to talk to the cup in a chirping little voice, imagining a conversation between them where she did all the talking.

Smiling really did wonders for Baze's face, Finn noticed. Actually, that gave Finn an idea. "Hey, would you and Chirrut mind taking care of her for a few hours?" he asked. "Just for a few. I'll pay you babysitting money..."

"Hmph. No need. You took care of the cat last summer. Least we can do. 'Sides, I need something to keep Chirrut busy. He finished all his paperwork and now he's got nothing to do but annoy me."

"That settles it, then." Poe wouldn't mind, Finn was sure. He had hit it off with Chirrut when they met in the hallway a week ago and they still hadn't wrapped up the conversation they had been having. "Bianca, grab your stuff, alright? You're going down the hall. Baze and his husband are gonna take care of you for a little while, alright?"

Bianca nodded absently, toddling towards the bedroom and bringing the mug along with her. Well, she could probably keep that for now.

 

\---------------

 

Bianca followed Baze three doors down to his apartment, her shoes shuffling on the trendy grey carpet in the hall. It smelled new, steam cleaned. There weren't even any mysterious stains on it.

"Who's your husband?" she asked while Baze fiddled with his keys. He was always getting the front door one muddled up with the store one. Keys all looked the same, he thought.

"Chirrut." he said simply. He really couldn't explain the guy, had spent the past few decades trying and failing. "You'll see."

"Bazey?" As soon as Baze opened the door, Chirrut perked up his ears and smiled, hearing an extra pair of footsteps. He had spent the morning in the exact same spot, letting the sunrise slowly climb all the way up his chest and face. About time something of interest happened. "Have we adopted?"

"Shush. Finn needed a babysitter. Her name's Bianca."

"Then hello, Bianca." Suddenly Chirrut felt a weight in his lap, small hands pressed to his cheeks. "You're friendly."

"Why's your eyes like that?" she asked,innocence and curiosity bright in her voice.  
  
"I'm blind, child." Chirrut explained, going back to his book with Bianca still in his arms. Baze had managed to track down a Braille copy of Jane Eyre for Chirrut's birthday. And he claimed he wasn't a romantic.

"They're pretty. Like a blue slushie. Those're my favourite only they make my head hurt. Why're you blind?"

"I looked at the sun for to long." he told her, nodding solemnly.

"Don't scare the kid, you." Baze swatted Chirrut with a newspaper on his way past, likely shaking his head.

"Do you have kids?" Bianca asked, poking Chirrut's cheek. No clue where that question came from. An inquisitive child if Chirrut had ever seen one.

"No."

"Are you going to have kids?" she prodded, clambering out of his lap again.

"No. We're too old." Chirrut explained, catching her before she could tip backwards off the couch.

"Oh." That seemed to stump her. "You can borrow me when you want. I can be your part time kid." she offered. Chirrut chuckled and pat her head. Perhaps he and Baze had missed out on something when they decided to adopt nothing but a cat.

His conviction only grew as the hours wore on. Overall, Bianca just managed to charm him in every way possible. Baze was just as enthralled, only he was doing a better job of hiding it.

"What're you doing?" Bianca asked, rolling onto her back and staring up at Chirrut. After lunch Baze had left her on the living room carpet with a glue stick, a stack of cardstock, crayons, and a bouquet someone hadn't picked up and wouldn't keep until tomorrow. Carnations and lilies and a handful of lavender button poms just beginning to wilt, but still good enough to make crafts with.

"Meditating." Chirrut hummed. Curious, Bianca sat down beside him on the big leather couch, watching his chest rise and fall under his thin black shirt. It was like watching a metronome tick; Bebe could feel herself dozing off already.

"You're just sitting." she tried to insist, running her hand over the couch cushion, wondering at its coolness, the rich texture under her fingertips. It was like her Papá's jacket, only with less cracks.

"Thoughtful sitting." Chirrut hummed. After trying to mimic him for a few minutes, Bianca collected her flowers and wandered over to where Baze was puzzling over his crossword puzzle, a tired old dictionary at his side. His face was wrinkly as a prune and his hair seemed to be getting in his eyes. Perhaps that was why he looked so grumpy, Bianca figured; it was because he couldn't see.

Without a word, she dragged over a stool and put it behind Baze's chair, clambering up and smiling. She felt like one of those hairdresser ladies in salons: the ones who wore a smart little apron around their waists and had hairpins clipped to the cuff of their sleeve. Nodding to herself, she started to hunt for a place to part Baze's tangled mess of coarse curls. And Poe thought her hair was hard to deal with.

"I'm gonna make you pretty." she announced, starting to twist his hair between her fingers, sticking in bright yellow carnations wherever it seemed appropriate.

"Really? That might be hard to do. There's a reason I married a blind man, little one." Baze chuckled. He let Bianca keep up with her antics, occasionally consulting her about his crossword. Most of it was for his own benefit, though; she was a talkative kid, but she quieted while she was pondering what twelve down was. Baze got a good ten minutes of peace that way.

Eventually, he realised that peace came from the fact Bianca had fallen asleep standing up, her cheek resting on his shoulder and arms wrapped around his neck. He scooped her up with a grunt, setting her down in his lap and checking his reflection in the glass cupboard. She had wrangled his hair into a messy french braid, decorated with the flowers that stuck out at odd angles.

Overall, though, Baze sort of loved it.

"Maybe we should have had children. You're good at taking care of them." Chirrut smiled on his way by, handing Baze his orange teddy bear mug, the tea steaming up Baze's reading glasses.

"Too late for that, now." he sighed, rocking Bianca back and forth.

"Why not? Miracles happen." Chirrut laughed. "Perhaps some higher power will come through for us, bring about the next immaculate conception. You'd be a nightmare if you were pregnant, though. You're grumpy enough as is..."

 _"Bì zuǐ."_ Baze grumbled, blowing on his tea and begrudgingly accepting the kiss Chirrut pressed to his rather perfumy curls.

_"Wǒ yě ài nǐ."_

 

\---------------

 

"Hi."

"Hey." Finn threw back the martini he was working on and puffed out his cheek, looking out at the party swirling below them. He had retreated to the stone balcony overlooking it all, in convenient proximity to the open bar and far away from anyone who might try and hit on him. That was quite a few people, now that Finn thought about it. Hux's heiress friends thought he was quite the catch. God, he wished he was at home. "Did you make any friends?"

"No. This isn't exactly my crowd." Poe snorted. "They were not amused when I referred to the quiches as fetus pies."

"To be fair, that does sound about twelve types of wrong..." Finn put down his glass on a table, and when he turned back to Poe he cocked an eyebrow. "Where the fuck did you get a Kit-Kat?" Because all the tuxedoed waiters had to offer were the most pretentious hors d'oeuvres Finn had ever seen. And he had seen a lot of oeuvres.

"Found a 7-11 on my way here, thank God. Would've starved if I hadn't." Poe noticed where Finn's eyes had wandered and snapped off the other half for him, laughing when he crammed the whole thing in his mouth. Cheddar gougères and Reblochon tarts really couldn't compare to the cheapest, shittiest chocolate on the planet.

"You having fun?" Finn asked, knowing the answer when the question made Poe snort.

"I'm just bored. And hungry. And horny." he added, glancing at Finn. He seemed eager for something. Finn had no idea what he could possibly be looking for. "Emphasis on that last one."

"You're..." Well, that had escalated quickly. "You're suggesting we do this here." Finn said slowly.

"Yes."

"In my boss' house."

"Yep."

"My boss, who hates me on an oddly personal level."

"Bingo."

Finn considered it for a second, then he straightened Poe's tie and pulled him towards one of the upstairs bathrooms. There were about four in the house; people wouldn't notice if one was occupied for a fair bit of time.

Once the lock clicked behind them Poe scoped the place out for cameras, and, finding none, hopped up onto the counter and smiled at Finn. "All clear."

"That's a relief." Finn laughed, letting Poe pull him into a kiss. He was swinging his legs back and forth, Finn realised, a kid on a swingset. For whatever reason, they almost made each other feel like a couple elementary school sweethearts. It was extraordinary. "Hey, not to kill the vibe, but I don't have a condom."

"What do you mean you don't carry condoms wherever you go?" Poe scoffed. "So clearly, only one of us is getting off, then." 

"Rock paper scissors for it?" Finn offered, holding out his hand.

"Best outta three." Poe insisted, starting off the game.

That turned into best out of six, then nine, then Finn found himself on the ground between Poe's legs, watching him undo his belt. Well, it could be worse. He worked Poe's pants and briefs down to dangle around his ankles and Poe wriggled out of his jacket, spreading it out on the counter and spreading his thighs apart, his clit already wet and swollen. Smirking, Finn dropped to his knees again, thankful this bathroom was fancy enough to have clean floors. 

"Gotta keep this quick." he warned, kissing Poe's clit. "And quiet."

"You ask too much of me." Poe laughed before his words got lost in a quiet moan. "Fuck..."

 _"Quiet."_ Finn purred against his folds, a smile spreading across his face. Poe bit his lip and tangled his fingers in Finn's curls, his legs already shaking. Finn had started growing out his hair, and now it coiled softly around Poe's hand like a friendly octopus. He had gotten into the habit of playing with it at every opportunity, and one day that ended with him nearly yanking Finn's skull off while they were watching a horror movie. Finn had taken to wearing a tuque around the house, after that little fiasco.

"I don't understand rich people bathrooms." After about two minutes Poe opened one eye and leant up against the glass, considering the ornate frame around the mirror, the gilded light fixtures on the wall. Finn blinked up at him, eyes soft and vaguely curious. "Like, you're not exactly taking in the scenery while you're in here, are you? What's the point?"

"You're killing the mood." Finn complained. Poe snorted and pushed Finn back between his legs, shaking his head.

"You put some actual effort in and I won't be able to focus on anything else." he said comfortably. Grumbling, Finn dug his fingers into Poe's thighs and Poe gasped, tilting his head back and trying to look nonchalant. He whimpered and Finn shushed him, shooting a look his way.

"They'll catch us if they hear you, lover. This is too scandalous a position for us to be found in..."

"Fuck you." Poe whined, heat building behind his eyes, coiling in his gut. Already he was going to come, after barely five minutes of Finn being down there. Man, Finn really was getting good at this. Knowing just what he was doing, Finn pushed closer, keeping his tongue pressed to Poe's clit as he came, pulsing wetly around Finn's fingers, slick trailing down the insides of his thighs. Before he could make much noise Finn got to his feet and kissed him, muffling his whimpers with his lips and trying very hard to ignore how hard he had gotten.

"You alright?" he breathed when he was done, nuzzling Poe's nose and cupping his pulsing hole, catching the slick that dripped out.

"Yeah..." Breathless, Poe tilted his head back and laughed. "Y'know, for a guy with next to no experience, you're pretty damn good."

"Probably 'cause I eat a lot of cream puffs." Finn shrugged.

"What's that got to do with it?" Poe asked, wriggling back into his clothes. The hem of his pants were a little bit wrinkled, but hopefully no one would notice.

"I dunno. Sucking the cream out? That seems like a relevant skill. Y'know, lip workout. And when they're, like, half frozen you have to lick them pretty hard, so..."

"The mood's already dead, sweetheart. You can stop trying to kill it." Poe pat the top of Finn's head, accepting an apologetic kiss. "You need any help downstairs?" he added, a sly glint in his eye as he considered Finn's rather bunched up crotch.

"You know I get too sleepy afterwards..." Finn mumbled. After considering it for a minute he undid his pants and did some rearranging, trying to use his belt, the bottom of his shirt. It didn't work all that well. That was the problem with tailored clothes, though: no wiggle room.

"Can't say I can relate, sweetheart. I get horny in public and I just roll with it." Poe laughed. He watched Finn fidget and squirm, trying to make himself decent. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck him. "Granny doing hot yoga."

"Poe..."

"Clown strip poker."

"I'm gonna kick you."

"Spongebob porno." Finn gave him a swat and Poe danced out of his way, trying to think of more decidedly unsexy things. "Is it gone yet? Big Bird lap dance."

"Shut up..." Finn groaned, doing up his pants and shoving Poe outside while he put himself back together. It was gone, but Finn didn't want to give Poe the satisfaction of knowing that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk guys im tired its 2 AM have some idiots


	11. Chapter 11

Poe poked his head out of the bathroom to see Finn slumped over on the couch, the quilt Rey had given Poe for Christmas wrapped around his shoulders, tight enough that only his kelly green socks poked out from the bottom. Poe wasn't quite sure when Finn had shown up, but he had a feeling it wasn't a cheerful occasion. If it were, Finn would have brought doughnuts.

"Hi."

"Hey." To call Finn's response absent would have been generous. All his attention seemed to be on the bouquet he had left in a mason jar on the counter, beside a stack of beat-up paperbacks. Poe had never thought he would see so much vehemence pointed at flowers.

"You alright?" he asked, sitting down with a cup of last night's coffee. To answer him, Finn shook off his blanket and flopped over to Poe's side of the couch, hugging him tight to his chest. When he didn't care his clothes were getting wrinkled, you knew it was serious. Poe sighed and hugged back, taking a deep breath of Finn's woodsy work cologne, an empty bottle of which Poe kept on his bedside table, just to let the scent linger. That shit even smelled expensive. "Is it your mom?"

"Yeah." Finn purposely muffled his voice in Poe's neck, like he was trying to hide from the words. "We're packing everything up tomorrow. Got her a nice room at the care centre, at least. Big windows and everything. Faces the sunrise, too..." He shrugged, pulling away and fiddling with one of the petals that had fallen off his bouquet. "So there's that."

"She'll like it." Poe assured him, unsure of what more he could do. They always danced around this subject, he and Finn, tiptoeing like they were afraid of waking a sleeping bear. Finn never volunteered much information about what had led up to the whole thing, but there seemed to be more to it than just a car crash.

Letting the matter drop, Poe yawned and leaned back against the couch, grimacing into his coffee and watching the sunrise slide across the room, the light from passing cars reflecting off the ceiling in a lazy, crawling light show. The Saturday morning rush was creeping to a start: minivans going to tournaments, buses toting university students, all stagnating on the sizzling asphalt. Typically he would spend the day either in bed with Finn or downtown with Bianca on one arm and Finn on the other, but all things considered, he didn't think either of them had the heart for it.

"There something else bothering you?" The question was out of Poe's mouth before he could stop it. "Sorry." he added, feeling Finn stiffen at his side. "For prying, I mean."

"It's fine." Finn burrowed close again, dragging against Poe's cheek, letting the sting of his stubble keep him awake. He had pulled an all-nighter at work, but he was going to be the first through those hospital doors if it killed him. Not that there was typically that big of a fight to get in, but the prospect of a struggle motivated him. "Sorry for being a pain. Just that it kinda gets me down, though, losing both moms back-to-back like I did. Seems like a practical joke..."

"What two moms?" Poe blinked Finn properly into focus, wondering if he had heard right. "I thought you only had the one."

"The other one wasn't really my mom. Stepmom, maybe? I dunno..." Finn opened one eye, figuring that since he had started talking, there was no sense in stopping now. "Her name was Bonnie. About a year ago her husband started to suspect something was up between her and my mom. She had to leave, go back down south. We couldn't contact her 'cause her husband was monitoring her accounts and calls. And if he found out about us he'd do God knows what."

Finn shook his head and rested his forehead on Poe's chest, letting his eyes ease shut. He hadn't slept the night before, trying to salvage some faulty project Ren had landed him with. Work had been murder, lately, and this was really just the cherry on top.

"The night she left, my mom was driving and must've been crying, not looking where she was going. Got into a crash and I couldn't tell Bonnie. I kinda decided _fuck it_ and emailed her a week ago. Told her everything. It was stupid, but I just couldn't..." Poe realised that tears had started pricking up in Finn's eyes, rolling down his cheeks and staining Poe's shirt. Finn blinked and sniffled, pawing at his face. "Fuck, I didn't want to start crying..."

"It's alright, sweetheart." Poe cupped Finn's face in his hands, thumbing over his cheekbones, brushing away his tears while the story lined up in his head. It made sense, technically. It made his blood boil in his veins, but it made sense. "I tried making cookies?" he offered. "Would that make it better?"

Finn managed a laugh, hoarse and cracking as it was. He had spent a whole Saturday trying to teach Poe how to bake, and at the end of the day all he could get a handle on were sugar cookies. "I'll pass for now." He smiled a little and let Poe nuzzle his nose, amazed at how simple a gesture could fill him with such calm. "And who knows? She might turn up..."

"That's the spirit." Just as Poe was leaning in for another kiss, he heard bedsprings squeaking in the other room, the sound of socked feet shuffling for balance. A second later Bianca was trotting into the living room in nothing but her undies, the dress Finn had gifted her slung over her shoulder. "Hey, pumpkin. What's with the getup? You going to a movie premiere?"

"I'm going with Finn to his mom's house." Bianca announced, as though it was a predetermined fact. She planted herself on Finn's lap and held out a bunch of dandelions she had plucked from the patch of grass outside the apartment, all done up with a bit of purple ribbon and edges of doily lace she must have dug up in the crafts box. Baze and Chirrut had become her regular babysitters, and she had developed a penchant for flower arrangements. "See? It's a bouquet like Snow White's got." she explained, letting Poe help her into her dress. "Your mom's gonna like it, right?"

"'Course she will." A tired smile on his face, Finn hummed the first few lines of _Someday My Prince Will Come_ , scooping up Bianca and kissing Poe on the cheek on his way out the door. "We should get going, then. Takeout tonight?"

"Fine by me. Extra egg rolls." Poe called down the hall. Finn's laughter was still bouncing off the faded green wallpaper when Poe slid the last bolt into place and flopped against the door. Why the walls were painted that colour, Poe didn't know. He didn't really like the feeling of living in a pickle jar.

With the two of them gone, Poe didn't quite know what to do with himself. It was his day off, one that Luke insisted he take despite his complaints. It wasn't like it was an issue of money (for once), seeing as it was paid; just that Poe would rather be doing something with his hands, occupy himself and try not to think about some things.

He should go in anyways, he should, but instead he just washed dishes, dusted, gave Kes a call, looked over the bills he had already paid, tried to go through his mountains of random shit, before he finally carried a couple loads of laundry down to the basement. He tricked himself into thinking he would actually address the issue then, but instead he wound up watching the water churn and foam through the little washing machine window, his mind going in circles as well, a dull and plodding cycle that almost lulled him to sleep.

After letting that hypnotize him for a good half hour, he shook himself out of his own head and stuck the sopping wet clothes in the one dryer that didn't have rust in the back of it. After kicking the machine to life, Poe puffed out his cheeks and slumped against the cracking plaster wall, knowing that after this he would have no excuse to not do the thing he so desperately did not want to do. But it could wait, couldn't it? Just another couple days. That wouldn't make much of a difference. Just another couple days...

While he waited, Poe watched sickly grey sunlight try and find its way into the room, peeking through the cobwebby window set at sidewalk level, shy and hopeful. But the shadow of passing feet constantly halted its progress. It was dull out there, especially for June: all slate skies and halfhearted rain trickling down the alley drain. Poe had wanted to take Finn out for a picnic or something, but he had a feeling overcast sunsets weren't romantic.

He snapped out of his thoughts when his stomach started churning, a skiff being tossed around in a storm. Woozy, he tried to swallow down his nausea and steadied himself on the moth-eaten ironing board at his side. Once it passed a good five minutes later, Poe staggered upright again, trying to convince himself that it wasn't what he thought it was. Besides, fussing over it was about as useful as a compass that doesn't point north. Made things worse, if anything. He should just get it over with right now and not think about it. That was what he should do.

Then the dryer dinged and he set about unloading it, being sure to carefully fold everything: pairing the socks, buttoning up the shirts, lining up the cuffs of the pants; thankful for the extra half hour of thinking that would give him.

 

\-----------

 

"Do you like it?" Bianca asked for what had to be the twelfth time. She was comparing the wilting daisies and crushed dandelions she had put together with Finn's armful of creamy white daffodils and purple irises, expertly arranged and tied up with a cobalt blue bow. "It's not as good as yours..."

"That's 'cause Baze has been making bouquets since before you were born, Bianca. Yours is nice, too." Finn grabbed the plastic milk crates out of his trunk, careful not to let the hood fall on his head. One of the struts was faulty, kept collapsing at the most inopportune moments. He should really get Poe to look at that. "Besides, no one's about to complain about having too many flowers." he pointed out, herding her in through the visitor's entrance. On their way past the information desk a nurse smiled at them, clearly eyeing Bianca and wondering just what Finn's situation was. "She'll feel twice as special."

"Okay. But what's the boxes for?" Bianca's voice was bright in the quietly bustling halls, chirping like a bird over the quick, soft-soled footsteps and quiet PA announcements around them.

"We're packing some stuff today so we don't have to do it all tomorrow when she moves to a different hospital." Finn said simply. It hurt just thinking about it, so instead he listened to the beeping machines, the soft, technical conversations bleeding through sterile beige doors. All safe, all familiar.

And then he turned the corner and heard the voices.

One voice was frail, wind in the trees with a gale behind it, while the other rang out like the brassy trill of a trumpet. Both, though, were familiar. And the both of them made Finn's knees turn to jelly.

"Finn?" Bianca looked up at him, but he was frozen in place, eyes wide and staring. She ran ahead, and he watched like a man in a dream as she peeked into his mom's hospital room and ran back to him, dragging him over with no regard to the fact they were making a scene.

"True love, Finn! I told you!" Bianca said, in a whisper that wasn't a whisper at all. She stayed in the doorway while Finn peeked inside, trying to understand what he was seeing, how it was real.

Bonnie, impeccably dressed as always in a properly pressed swing dress, her orange curls in an updo of calculated messiness. She wasn't wearing that ridiculous wedding ring from her husband anymore, having replaced it with the smooth silver band Finn's mother wore around her neck.

"Well, look who decided to turn up." She caught Finns eye and winked, nodding surreptitiously at Angela, who was opening her eyes, slowly, slowly, blinking a few times before she settled her gaze and smile on Finn.

"Mom?"

A wider smile pulled at Angela's chapped lips, crinkled in the corners of her eyes. "Did I sleep in?" she croaked, her voice nasally from the tubes sticking out of her nose. She smiled when Finn staggered close, reaching out and brushing her fingers over his shirt, the movement stiff and awkward, but full of such a wonderful gentleness that no one noticed. "Look at you." Angela let Finn take her hand, the frailty of it making her squint. "Geez, look at me, too. I'm a skeleton."

"Mm. You've been out a year to the day, remember? The doctor told you an hour ago." Bonnie said gently. Angela's forehead furrowed up a little, the words seeming to stall somewhere between her and Bonnie. Twelve months under seemed to have a couple consequences. "But don't you fret about it. The doctors were through the whole spiel already. And the important thing is that you're on the mend."

"Thank fuck for that." Angela breathed out, tugging at Finn's hair before pinching his cheek. "Get a haircut."

"Mom..." Barely two hours awake, and she was already micromanaging him. God, he had missed her.

"I'll give him one later, how's that sound?" Bonnie soothed. "Rest now, honey. You just rest. But don't dare go back into a coma." she warned as Angela slipped off, her breathing steady and a smile on her face. Finn kissed her hand and buried his face in her neck while Bonnie pecked the top of her head. It was so like those long summer nights on the back porch, sea salt winds coming off the harbour and cooling the heat that prickled on their skin as they sat curled together with comic books, cookbooks, dictionaries, novels, peaceful and still in the moonlight. 

So they all jumped when somebody let loose a giggle in the doorway, sounding rather pleased with themselves. "Now who's this?" Bonnie wondered, watching Bianca creep inside, suddenly shy.

"Bianca. Are you her true love?" she asked, tiptoeing over to Bonnie and handing her the little bouquet. "I think you are, 'cause she woke up when you got here."

"That so?" Bonnie threw back her head and laughed, the note warm as a well-tuned timpani. "She's yours, isn't she, baby? Well, it's high time you give me some grandbabies." Bonnie scooped up Bianca, who giggled and set about playing with Bonnie's string of pearls, the spheres iridescent against her fingers. "Is it just the one?"

"Just the one." Finn confirmed, still curled up against Angela, still with tears dripping down his face. They would talk more later, but now, now he just needed rest. "That's not gonna change any time soon."

 

\--------------

 

After taking another deep breath, Poe opened his eyes and looked down at the innocent little stick he was holding, the innocent little white stick that had very nearly given him a panic attack. This couldn't be real.

"No, no. No, no no no. Oh, fuck..." The words were muffled behind Poe's hand, alternating between squeaky and hoarse, but always retaining a certain anxious strain. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't the plan. Not to say Poe had had a plan, but this would not have been part of it, if it had existed.

He had had his suspicions, of course, going so far as to go of his meds because who knew what that would do to the baby he may or may not be toting around. It seemed impossible, even now. But a condom had probably broken, they must have fucked it up. How he and Finn had fucked up something so simple, Poe wasn't sure. He shoved the pregnancy test into the trash and pressed himself up against the wall, his heart going to pieces in his chest.

This was going to end things between them, wouldn't it? Finn wouldn't want this. He had his shit together. He had his job and his life and problems of his own and there was no way Poe was shoving a baby into the picture. He should get an abortion, obviously. That was reasonable. Not ideal, but reasonable. Finn was the kind of guy who would understand, who wouldn't try and make Poe feel bad for it. Unfortunately, Finn wasn't the issue.

Poe wanted a baby. As stupid and awful and irresponsible as it was, he wanted to have a baby.

It hadn't been all that bad the first time, had it? Well, maybe it had, but Poe had been alone, hadn't had anyone to help prop him up. It was different now, right?

Poe ran his hand absently over his stomach, thinking back to the nine months of lonely nights five years ago, lying in bed with nothing but a growing bulge in his midsection and an awful seasick feeling churning in his gut. There hadn't been anyone to run out and buy him frozen yogurt at two in the morning, no one to hug him and tell him it was okay, that their baby would be okay.

Because if they went through with it, this would be their baby. Not just his. Bianca's dad wasn't just absent; he was a ghost. Poe couldn't remember the guy's name, his face, the feeling of his hands. All he could remember was the bottom of shot glasses and a dull, unsatisfying ache between his legs when he woke up the next morning. Not exactly Hallmark movie material.

But that guy was long gone, history. Finn was the one Poe was worried about. It might make him happy, might make him leave, might make him do countless things Poe was too scared to consider. Poe would tell him eventually. He would. But right now Finn had too much on his plate, shots coming at him from every direction.

So for now, as awful as it was, Poe would keep it a secret, and hope to God everything would turn out alright, hope to God everyone would turn out alright.

"This is fucked up." he said bleakly, looking down at his gut. Then he relented and gave it a pat. "No offence."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know its been a minute but here


	12. Chapter 12

Finn opened his eyes and yawned, feeling a hand on his head, too thin and frail to be Poe's, too big to be Bianca's. He nuzzled into the touch and sighed, letting his eyes drift shut again.

"Hi, mom." he breathed, remembering where he was, who he was with.

"Baby." A kiss was pressed to the top of his head. "You don't have work?"

"Not until late." he mumbled into her mint green hospital gown, tracing the swirling patterns in the fabric. "Maybe I should take the day off. I don't want to leave..."

"Nuh-uh. Not on my watch." Angela pinched his ear, the precursor to a stern lecture. "You're not using me as an excuse to take a vacation, young man. Got that?"

"Yes ma'am." Finn mumbled, his face warming up. He had a sudden flashback to being twelve years old, standing stark stiff on the flowery living room carpet while she looked over his report card, taking an awfully long time to read it, considering how quick she breezed through books and the evening paper. It was always straight A's, but she liked making sure. And at the end of the ordeal Finn always got a strawberry ice cream cone from that bustling little shop by the beach. Made the whole thing worth it. He should take Poe there, sometime...

"But when you do get a legitimate day off," she continued, "We're headed straight back home. You've probably rented the place out, I know, but I miss the place." she sighed, eyes on the drawing of it Finn had put up on the corkboard. He had known that thing was a good idea.

"You don't want a party or something? Triumphant return and all that?"

"I want my flowerbeds, that's what I want." Her eyes fluttered and she sighed, resting back on the pillows. "They'd better be there when I get back..."

Bonnie chuckled at his side as Angela dozed off again, stroking Bianca's head like a kitten. She had wound up napping in Bonnie's lap, the excitement of living in a fairytale a bit much for her. "You've got yourself a drill sergeant again." Bonnie teased. "You've been on leave for too long, baby. Time to get back on the front lines."

"I'm alright with that." Finn laughed a little, keeping his voice quiet. It was a hospital, after all. Wouldn't do to make too much noise. "I still can't believe you're here, Bon. I've missed you."

"Missed you too, honey bun." Bonnie cuddled Bianca closer when she squirmed in her sleep, mumbling about a pirate ship and bubblegum. How did the two of them go together? "You got an angel on your hands. You know that, right? Cute as a button."

"You should see her dad. I think he's your type." Finn teased back. It was a known fact that Bonnie had a thing for dashing military types with nice butts. "I want you to meet him." he added, softening his tone. That would be a whole lot of personality in one room, but he decided not to consider the consequences of that.

"'Course I'm going to meet him. I'd meet him even if you didn't want me to. Track him down at work, see that he's treating you right." A sure smile split across Bonnie's face, bright and warm as the Mississippi sun, but one those who knew her had grown to fear. She was not kidding about tracking Poe down, that was certain. "He is treating you right, isn't he?"

"Treating me right as rain." Finn assured her. That hadn't been the case with Bonnie and her husband, unfortunately. "You got a divorce?"

"Yessir. Took awhile, though. Longer than it should've. He had lawyers coming out his ears, I swear..." Bonnie clucked her tongue and shook her head, making Bianca loll. "For a man who spent half his time smacking me and the other half cheating on me, he put a lot of effort into making me stay."

"I'm happy you got away."

"I'm happy you told me what happened. Happy I got here in time. Happy as a clam at high tide." Bonnie blew Finn a kiss and pat the back of Angela's hand, avoiding the tubes sticking out of her cracking, freckled skin. "I want to hear all about this new friend of yours, by the way. What's he like? List off everything as it comes."

"Well..." Finn had to pretend he wasn't capable of rhapsodizing about the man. That might come across as a little bit strange, he thought.

"His name's Poe. Poe Dameron. He's a mechanic? A really good one. Keeping my car alive, at any rate. He sings in the shower, and the car, and the kitchen. Sings everywhere, really. He makes good pancakes, too." Kind of burnt at the edges, but Finn didn't care. "Sometimes he stays up 'till about three in the morning watching Kitchen Nightmares, won't even notice 'till I wake him up the next morning. And he snores like hell..." 

"And he loves you?" Bonnie added after another dozen additions to the list. It was almost as though Finn had a notebook hidden somewhere in his apartment, full of details anyone else would miss. Oh, the wonders of young love. "And you love him?"

"Yeah." Finn smiled, pausing in his enumeration. "I do."

Bonnie nodded and sat back in her chair, her eyes easing shut and a grin settling on her face, one hand still twined with Angela's. That was all she wanted to hear.

 

\------------

 

Poe hopped off the bus and a friendly breeze filled his lungs, fresh off the park nearby, cool beneath the shade of maple trees older than he was. It was something of a shock to the system. Transit that ran through the east side tended to be a little bit rank. After getting his bearings, Poe wandered up the street, kicking a deflated soccer ball left for dead on the side of the road. If Kes wasn't home, Poe wasn't quite sure what he would do with himself. Thankfully, the guy was something of a homebody.

They had been close, before Poe ran off. Had to be close, when it was just the two of them in the house. A bit of that was starting to come back, now. Considering all that had happened between them, they had picked up easily, Kes' frankness and straightforward approach to life in general making the gap of a decade simple to bridge.

"Hey, boy." Poe yanked open the rusty front gate, crouching as Kes' doberman limped up to him, his one eye soft and stump of a tail doing its best to wag. Poor thing had gotten thrown around some in a car crash that had killed one of Kes' buddies, an honorary uncle Poe realised he missed after the fact.

Poe sighed and ruffled Kay's coarse curls, fraying at the edges like an old carpet. He was too old and blind to do much of anything aside from lie in the shade of Kes' raspberry arbour, but Kes made an effort to keep the old mutt cosy as he ailed. "Dad treating you right?"

After being answered with a half-hearted sneeze, Poe slipped the old thing a treat and poked his head into the side door. It opened into the kitchen he had spent half his childhood in, watching his dad test out recipes he ripped out of magazines or scribbled down in doctors offices while his mom tinkered with the freezer. That probably explained why Poe had been so chubby, now that he thought about it.

True to form, he found Kes mixing up corn cake and listening to the transistor radio he carried around in his pocket, a busted old thing with the reception of an underground survival bunker. Poe had tried to convince him that it was now the age of iPods, but Kes was stuck in his ways. The man still owned a flip phone.

"Hey, kid. Hand me the eggs? I forgot half of 'em." Kes asked, by way of a greeting. Poe hummed an agreement and kicked off his shoes, sliding over to the fridge on the busy yellow tiles. The place needed an update. It was a 70's time warp.

"Man, you really are getting old. How long have you been making this stuff?" Poe mimed throwing the eggs before coming over and dropping them by the other bowls and jars, trying to balance one on the can of creamed corn before deciding against it. "So what's up, Doc?"

"I'm too old for anything to be up." Kes grumbled, cracking the eggs into his bowl. "You're young, though. You must have news."

"There's news, alright..." Poe's laugh was a bit on the guilty side. "Actually why I came over. Needed advice." he admitted, sitting down at the kitchen table and popping a sugar cube into his mouth. All day he'd been wanting sweet stuff. It was a nightmare.

"And here I was thinking you wanted to enjoy my company." Kes huffed. "Well, spit it out, then." 

"It's just that, uh." What were sentences again? "I'm kind of...there's..." How the hell would he explain this one? Kes raised an eyebrow and Poe buried his face in his hands, trying for another laugh. This would be a doozy.

"I'm pregnant?" he ventured, peeking at Kes through his fingers.

For a second, the air hummed with nothing but the dog barking outside, the whirr of a bike rattling down the alleyway and Sinatra crooning about Jupiter and Mars, voice staticky and garbled. Poe really had to convince Kes to get a new radio. He sat back in his seat and sighed, staring at the two holes in the wall where he had snapped off the towel bar, hanging off it like a jungle gym when he was five.

"You're..." After buffering for a moment, Kes dropped down into a creaky kitchen chair beside Poe with a huff. He was still stirring his bowl of batter, not even noticing when flour spilled over the edge. When he thought stuff over he felt compelled to keep his hands busy, had been known to pick away at old documents, doing the job of a paper shredder, really. "It's...it's Finn's, right?"

"No, it's the fucking milkman's. Of course it's Finn's..."

"Are milkmen still a thing?"

"Dad. Focus."

"Right, right..." Kes puffed out his cheeks and set aside his bowl, wiping the powder off his sleeves. "Does Finn know?"

"No. You're the first person I told."

"Don't I feel special." Kes heaved himself upright, pouring his batter into a tube pan, smoothing out the lumps. Shara had always teased him about how fussy he was with food, gotten into the habit of calling him a housewife. "You gonna keep it?" he asked.

"I mean, I want to?" Poe admitted. He rested a hand on his belly, shaking his head. "But this is a lot, isn't it? We've only been dating for a couple months. I dunno if I can do that to him..."

"He did it to himself, really." Kes fiddled with the knobs on his stove, trying to remember which one was busted. One of them was likely to set the house on fire. "I mean, even if you don't stay together because of this - which I hope doesn't happen, because I like the guy - he doesn't strike me as the absent dad type. Something would be arranged. Child support and all that. You'd get by." And besides, Kes would be around to help out, this time.

"I know, dad. It's not that part I'm worried about. I just want this kid to have two parents from the get go, y'know? The same as everybody else." Even Poe had had it, at least for a little while. "This would be like a do over, make up for what I couldn't give Bianca."

"Hm." Kes closed his eyes as he sat back down, arms crossed tight over his chest, if only to hold in the laugh he felt bubbling up in his belly. He couldn't help but be excited by the whole thing. "I mean, he's already taking care of Bianca with you, right? We know kids aren't a dealbreaker with him."

"I wasn't gonna tell him." Poe admitted. "At least not for a little while. A month, at most."

"This is something of a time-sensitive situation, kid."

"I know. It was stupid..." And being three months pregnant without anyone backing him wasn't an attractive prospect. "I'll tell him when he gets back tonight." Poe decided. Hopefully Finn would consider it good news. Who knows? Maybe he wanted this as much as Poe. "I'll tell him."

"Good idea." Kes nodded in approval, clapping Poe's shoulder. Now on to more important matters. "Can I feel the baby?"

"I'm two months, dad. And then only barely..."

"Humour the old man." Kes leaned over and poked Poe's stomach, curious. "Hello in there." he said quietly. He hadn't anticipated this, but he could roll with it. More grandchildren didn't strike him as an issue. "What're you gonna call 'em?"

"Kes? As a middle name. Bianca's middle name's Shara..." Poe offered. "I dunno what Finn wants. He should have a say in it..."

"You're carrying the kid around. You should get to decide on the name. Your mom chose Pauline, actually. Either that or Luke. I wanted to name you after my mother. Or Armando." he added thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why you came out a girl. Didn't want to go through life with a name like that."

Poe couldn't help when he burst out laughing, the idea actually making a fair bit of sense. "Armando? Really? Other kids would've called me Armadillo..."

" _I_ would've called you Armadillo." Kes admitted. "You avoided that nickname, at least. You chose good, kid."

"Glad someone thinks so." The grip on Poe's chest loosened, handcuffs being unlocked after the suspect was acquitted. Relieved enough to realise he was starving, Poe tilted back in his chair, one hopeful eye on the stove. "That gonna be ready any time soon?" He knew full well it had been barely five minutes, but maybe he would get lucky.

"Definitely pregnant." Kes sighed. Shara had passed down the pregnancy sweet tooth, clearly. He pulled a pudding cup out of the fridge and tossed it to Poe, shaking his head. "Tell that boyfriend of yours to stock up on candy."

"Will do." Poe did that already, but Kes didn't need to know that part.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is 3 in the morning im cry


	13. Chapter 13

"So..." Finn began as he wiped steam off the mirror, squinting at his reflection. Huh. He really did need a shave. "Is it good news?

Poe shook his head, nodded, then shrugged, stepping out of the shower with unusual care, his heel and toe hitting the tile at the same time. Now that didn't make any sense. Finn had seen the guy tumble down a flight of stairs and pop up a second later; why was he so tentative all of a sudden?

"Then...is it bad news?"

"It's news." Poe said, soundly enough. Finn didn't quite know what to do with that information, though. Wrapping himself up in a threadbare towel pinched from a hotel, Poe sat down on the edge of the bathtub, settling in to watch Finn shave. For some reason, Finn was sure that would make him cut himself. The look in Poe's red rimmed eyes was a tad bit intense. "But it doesn't matter. Well, it does, but it can wait. I mean, your mom woke up, right? That's _incredible_ , Finn. Shouldn't we talk about that?"

"Why? You're gonna meet her tomorrow. Bonnie's taking us to dinner, some Thai place downtown. We're not paying." Finn added, tipping his head to the side, wondering if it was possible to clip an artery with a razor, which was what he wondered every time he shaved. "Bonnie's treat."

"I like this woman already." Poe's laughter was startling when paired with how grim he had been acting. Caught off guard, his hand hovered over his stomach a moment, then he stuttered to a halt and placed it on the rim of the tub, trying to make the move seem casual. It wasn't very convincing.

"You'll like her even more when you meet her." Finn watched Poe's hand in the mirror, wishing the scarred knuckles and clever fingers could divulge whatever Poe was hiding. Had been hiding all day, Finn felt. Maybe a bit longer. "Same goes for my mom. They can't wait to meet you."

"Can't wait to meet them." Poe agreed, wrinkling up his nose and turning towards the open window. Across the street, neighbours were grilling, filling the air with cigarette smoke and low chatter, the acridness of beer and the smoke of charcoal and steak. Finn perked up at the smell, but Poe shrank back, almost slipping into the tub again. The quiet, shuddering motion struck Finn as a little bit odd. Poe was not one to shirk a good burger. "Can you close the window?"

"Fine..." Finn took one last inhale as he pulled the latch shut, deep enough that cool air tingled in his nostrils, like he had inhaled underwater. He nodded when Poe mumbled an absent thank you, then the both of them stood or sat in silence for a spell, the only sound the gentle rasp of Finn's razor, Poe's halfhearted attempt at whistling.

In the silence Finn was starting to get antsy, and when he got antsy he got twitchy, and being twitchy with a razor in your hand was probably a bad thing. The elation from that morning and the stress from work and the twisty confusion of whatever this was made his head spin. What had his therapist told him? Take deep breaths, count to ten, do yoga, make tea, dunk your head in cold water...

Maybe he should do all that at the same time. That should work five times as well.

"So about that news..." he began, patting at his face with a towel. No blood, thankfully. Poe shifted on the yellowing porcelain, his eyes on the light flickering overhead. Midnight barbecues were forgivable, but the neighbours upstairs had a rather irksome habit of partying well into the wee hours of the morning, sending a staccato baseline thrumming through the ceiling. It did not help that their taste in music was subpar.

"Gimme a minute. Just...God, I dunno where to start..."

"If it's that important, I shouldn't find out about it in the bathroom." Finn decided. He pulled Poe up and pushed back his hair, slicked down with suds and dark against his scalp, black as night. He had been a bit too eager to get out of what had apparently been a disappointedly lukewarm shower, and there were still bubbles clinging to the flattened ends of his curls. "At least try and set the mood, sweetheart."

"What mood? I can't stand you art types..." Despite the eye-rolling and griping, Poe let Finn lead him the eight steps to his bedroom, the both of them peeking anxiously into Bianca's room to make sure she was sound asleep, drooling on her teddy bear's head. Because if it turned out to be good news, Finn did not want her walking in on their celebration.

Finn lingered in the doorway as Poe crawled into bed and stretched out like a happy cat. Smiling, Finn discarded his towel and collapsed on top of Poe, not taking the time to wonder why Poe gently maneuvered his head from resting on his stomach to pillowed on his chest. After all, Finn wasn't displeased with the spot, seeing as it gave him a reason to kiss and suck at Poe's chest and nipples. Those had been awfully sensitive, lately.

"How 'bout this? We'll play twenty questions." Finn proposed after awhile, pressing a kiss to Poe's collarbone as he drew back. That managed to startle Poe into a laugh, the sound abrupt in the pause between songs upstairs. Someone actually had the gall to stamp on the floor, as though Poe were the one causing the disturbance. "Can I start?"

"That counts as a question." Poe pulled his towel off the headboard and wiped away some shaving cream that had gathered in the hollow of Finn's neck. He must have missed it in his rush to not slit his own throat. "Just kidding. Not counting that one. Go ahead."

"So...is it something that happened at work?"

"Nah."

"Well, did I forget your birthday?"

"Nope. It's coming up, though." Poe reminded him.

"Duly noted. Is the landlord being a jerk?"

"Yeah, but that's not newsworthy..."

Five questions later Poe was squirming on the sheets, his chest shiny with a sheen of sweat. What was he looking so guilty about? "D'you want to go on a walk? Stuffy in here." he offered out of the blue, tugging anxiously on his curls. They had been able to make a habit of slipping out in the middle of the night together, wandering the streets that were so different under the light of the moon. Bianca not being prone to nightmares gave them that rare sort of freedom. Finn was pretty sure that even in her dreams she would talk down any bogeyman that dared look at her the wrong way, claws and glowing red eyes be damned.

"Sure." Finn took his hand and smiled in the hopes of cheering him up. He was good at that, usually. "Where d'you want to go?" he asked, pulling on the first clothes that he was able to get his hands on. They were probably Poe's, but that was okay.

"I dunno. Out." Poe adjusted Finn's collar and smiled, pulling him out the door. "Give you some time to work out what happened."

Hopefully that would take awhile, Poe thought as he dragged Finn out into the hall.

 

\------------

 

After being informed that no, he hadn't fought with his dad, and no, Poe hadn't sold his soul in exchange for sick guitar skills, Finn settled into silence. Maybe Poe was right, and a stroll would give him enough time to ruminate on his last two questions, on just what had managed to shake the unsinkable Poe Dameron.

In the time it took him to consider it all, their feet took them by fast food restaurants, hardware stores, the SkyTrain station that was a swarming beehive even at this hour. As they neared the bridge they passed the police station and mortuary, a juxtaposition Finn had never understood. They dashed across the street just as a screeching fender bender took place up the road. Nothing dangerous, and nothing that could cause any injuries bad enough to need tending, as Finn took care of telling Poe, pulling him away as the drivers got out to inspect the damage. If anything, Poe looked more rattled than they were.

"Sorry." Poe mumbled a block later, once his eyes cleared and his breathing evened out. "Just...sorry."

"Don't be." Finn kissed his brow, slipping his hand into Poe's and squeezing. Who was he to judge, after all? Poe had been around for a couple of Finn's panic attacks, helped him snap out of it. And those things weren't pretty.

Halfway across the bridge they stopped, turning their backs on the city lights in favour of the harbour clogged with fishing boats, bobbing like sleeping ducks on the midnight tide as it spilled freely into the Pacific. All his life here, and Finn had never tired of the view.

"Three questions left." Poe reminded him. Finn rested his head on Poe's shoulder, smiling when his hand came up on reflex, fingers gentle on Finn's cheek and scalp.

"Is it something I did?"

"Yes?" Poe laughed a little, tilting his head back. Finn swore he could see his cheeks going red. "In a sense."

"That's straightforward." Finn just rolled his eyes, but something was building in his stomach, strange and hopeful. "Did I forget it was my turn to do the dishes?"

"Yeah, I think you did. But that's not it." Poe turned to him, his face yellow on the left and blue on the right, moonlight and lamplight dividing it down the middle. "Last question." Finn didn't need the reminder, but it seemed to be more for Poe's benefit, stalling for a moment more. If it was what he thought it was, Finn wasn't quite sure what he should do. Wouldn't hurt to find out, though.

"Are you pregnant?"

The words staggered on his tongue, uncertain and shy. Poe hesitated, then he nodded, looking down at the ground and counting the cracks in the concrete. "Bingo."

"You're pregnant." Finn mumbled, more to himself than anyone. His head swam, and meanwhile Poe looked like he wanted to take a flying leap off the bridge or puke over the edge, whichever came first. "How far along?"

"Two months?" Poe looked up at him and took him by the shoulder. Finn hadn't realised he was swaying. "I didn't...I wasn't sure I was until today. Took a test this morning. And, well. Explains why I've been eating all your ice cream..."

"I was wondering about that." So that's what had happened to that pint of mint chocolate he had hidden in the back of the freezer. He couldn't really blame Poe, though. Eating for two and all.

"Yeah. Surprise, I guess?" Poe looked down at his stomach and shook his head. Finn's eyes trailed that way too, and for a moment he wondered how he hadn't noticed earlier, how he let this slip under his radar. "I dunno what to say at this point. I dunno what to do." Poe's shoulders sagged, crumbling under his own weight. "I want to keep it, Finn. I don't know how else to put it. I want to so badly."

Poe's voice was almost pained, his arms crossed tight over his baggy black hoodie. He hadn't bothered with a binder or sports bra, and Finn knew he felt exposed, stripped down and shivering in the cold that comes after revealing a secret. Nothing to protect him from what he didn't know was coming. Finn felt the same, almost; a part of him felt the same. But another part of him wanted to leap into the air, click its heels, and proclaim to the world that they were going to have a baby, that he and the guy he loved more than life itself were going to have a baby.

That part was kind of difficult to ignore.

"Can..." Finn's voice caught in his throat, too quiet under the rush of passing cars. "Can I feel?" he ventured, reaching out and stroking Poe's cheek, smoothing out his brow when it creased up in confusion. "The baby, I mean. Can I feel the baby."

"Sure?" Poe managed a smile and let Finn pull him a little closer, the smile spreading when Finn pat his stomach, the touch gentle and curious. Almost as though he hadn't been touching Poe for the past two months without a second thought. "I don't get it, though. Why does everyone want to feel? There's nothing to feel."

Finn didn't care, happily nuzzling against Poe's neck and closing his eyes, his palms still on Poe's stomach, on the pulse he felt under his skin. It was probably Poe's heartbeat, but Finn liked to think that the baby was trying to say hello.

"Hi, baby." he cooed, knowing full well the poor thing probably didn't have ears yet. Hell, it probably wasn't the size of a teacup, yet. Poe laughed a little in Finn's ear, the puff of his breath warm and quiet. "Good to meet you. I'm your dad, by the way. Right?" he asked, raising his head to look at Poe. "Just checking."

"Quit asking stupid questions. Of course it's yours..." Poe cupped his hand over the back of Finn's head and pulled him back down to rest against his chest, kissing the crown of his head. Finn sighed, feeling like he could drift off to sleep, standing here with warm air fluttering his clothes, Poe's hand in his hair, and a brand new baby growing between them. "You're happy?" He heard Poe ask. "You want to keep it?"

"I want to keep it." Finn confirmed. He nuzzled against Poe's cheek, his lips twitching into a smile as Poe pulled him in for a proper kiss, his lips sugar sweet and face like sandpaper, the familiarity of him all mixed up with everything new, everything he carried. Finn put his hand back on Poe's stomach, his eyes smiling now that his mouth was occupied.

Thank God Poe hadn't counted that first question.


	14. Chapter 14

Poe took a deep breath and tilted his head back against the fashionably industrial concrete wall, watching cars pass through the big picture window out front and listening to the muffled voices in the office. Luke was in the midst of wrapping up a call with some interviewer, a feature on what it was like being entrusted with rigging cars for a recent movie shoot. According to more than a few articles in glossy motor magazines, this place was an auto repair hidden gem, if such a thing existed. The Holy Grail of oil changes for finicky high end cars.

Poe sort of hoped that the interview would drag on long enough for him just to go home, honestly. He wanted to do this as much as he wanted to have sex with Hux in a gas station bathroom.

"This is your fault,  _cochinito_." Poe sighed and gave his belly a fond pat, inspecting the curve of it. He was already getting rather round considering the fact he was just three months along. A couple pairs of jeans were being held together with rubber bands at this point. "I love you, don't get me wrong, but you're putting me in a fucking awkward position, here..."

The bump in his belly was what had convinced him that now was the time to ask Luke for a raise. The problems were how proud Poe was, and how nice a boss Luke was. Nice enough that Poe usually forgot about overtime and bonuses. Probably an issue that the one aspect of his life where money didn't preoccupy him was where he  _made_  money, but he digressed.

Typically, he wouldn't dream of doing this. He hated asking for help, taking charity, but there was a baby on the way, and the little tyke needed to eat. Really needed to eat. Earlier Finn had had to pull Poe away from an apple pie he was defrosting on the counter. Raw, half frozen dough couldn't be  _that_  bad for the baby, could it?

He heard the phone receiver click and poked his head inside the office, nearly knocking a binder off a filing cabinet. Luke wasn't big on organization. "Hey, boss."

"Poe." Luke nodded, twisting his Corinthian leather office chair back and forth, the only hint of wealth in his cluttered room. In the hands of someone else the place would be quite chic, but Luke tended to transfer his scruffy dress sense to whatever environment he spent a significant amount of time in. "You got a question? How's the baby?"

"Growing. Clearly." Luke had to be told about it, seeing as Poe would be taking parental leave and all. "And I came 'cause I was wondering..." He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to breathe. Right, think of the baby, the entire extra mouth to feed. With Poe's luck it would get a Dameron appetite. "So, there any way I could get a raise? Anything I should do or..."

"Wait, when's the last time you had a raise?" Luke squinted at his screen, and after pulling up payroll he almost choked on his strawberry frappucino. "Oh, shoot. You haven't had a raise in ages. Huh. How does six percent sound? Make it seven. Hm, nine. You've missed a few three percent milestones..." he added, typing rapidly. Quite a feat, considering the fact he typed with only his index fingers. The man had a couple quirks. "Leave it to me to forget a thing like that. I got ten people on payroll and manage to forget one of the better ones. Now why haven't you told me? Most folks would be banging on my door, demanding I pay up..."

"It...I guess it never crossed my mind to ask." Poe blinked, the numbers still working in his head. He was pretty sure that put him about two thousand over the average provincial salary. It was like he had been hit over the head with a gold bar. "It was that easy?"

"Yeah? You're a hard worker. Not like you haven't earned it. You have to remind me of these things, Poe. I'm old and scatterbrained. So? Nine percent?"

"I...yeah. Thanks, boss." Poe breathed. He was almost lightheaded with relief, would collapse on the floor in an overdramatic faint if not for the whole pregnant thing.  
  
"No worries. I'll have it fixed by next payday. Sorry about that. You need anything else, just ask."

"Really? Then can I have a pony?"

"Don't push it."

 

\---------------

 

Poe had leant himself up against the short chainlink fence to wait for Bianca, warm air from passing cars on his back, coating him in a thin layer of dust and grit. He always wondered why you would want a preschool at a busy intersection. Seemed hazardous.

"Hey, this means we can buy you a fancy stroller." Poe looked down at his gut and smiled. He had spent the past half hour daydreaming about all the stuff he could buy for the kid, all on his own, too. Finn wouldn't be forking anything over for the extras if Poe had a say in it. He didn't care if the guy made ten thousand on him. "One of those ones with a built in Wi-fi hotspot. And heated cupholders..."

As he was considering the purchase of one of those beds with a built in bassinet, he heard the teacher clanging the cowbell inside the school. A rather archaic way of dismissing the kids, he considered as he joined the flow of parents trickling towards the door, but there was charm in it.

"Papá!" Poe heard Bianca over the buzz of a dozen little voices in the courtyard, kids milling around like confused ducklings. In theory they were supposed to orderly march themselves out, but the thrill of imminent summer vacation had somewhat dulled the sting of discipline.

"Hey, pumpkin. How was school?" he asked as Bianca ran out and hopped up into his arms. Good thing she was still small enough to do that. Might become difficult in the coming months, though.

"I hit somebody!" Bianca proclaimed, perhaps a bit too loudly. Poe blinked and she set about explaining as he carried her to the bus stop. "Don't worry, he's mean. He stole my homework and shoved me and I hit him. His nose got all bloody. He didn't tell teacher, 'cause he was embarrassed."

"That's nice." Poe nuzzled his nose against hers and she giggled. "You want grilled cheese for dinner?"

The only other option was boxed mac and cheese, but he liked to pretend there were further alternatives. Made him feel better about it.

Once they had run to catch the bus and Bianca had offered the driver half an Oreo, she clambered into Poe's lap and pressed her hands to the grimy window, would have pressed her face too if Poe hadn't pulled her back. While she watched the glistening buildings and stern concrete overpasses flash by, Poe looked just as curiously at the priority seating, wondering if anyone would let him sit there when he got unwieldy later on. Maybe he should buy a Baby On Board t-shirt.

Bianca babbled as they drove along, adding Spanish to the handful of language buzzing in the air around them. She had math homework, there was another field trip, pizza day was coming up. Poe didn't understand pizza day. Have a day every other month where the one kid who can't afford pizza sticks out like a sore thumb. After awhile he had just started telling Bianca to say she was lactose intolerant.

Well, at least now he could afford it. Hell, he could buy her a whole pizza if the fancy struck him. Not more than once a month, but still. Made a guy feel like a competent dad.

He dropped Bianca off with Kes for afternoon and made his way home, feeling light as air, not even bothering with the bus. He had gotten over the crash from going off his meds, and hadn't puked once today. In his eyes that was cause for celebration.

The shower was going when he walked in, Finn's whistling echoing off the walls as Poe kicked off his pants and pulled on a thick grey sweater. Poe sang in there and Finn whistled. They were a pretty loud pair, he decided. Humming along with Finn, Poe flopped down on the bed with a mystery novel, his legs crossed at the ankles. Two chapters from the end, and he was pretty sure the jilted lover had been framed by the scheming mother. He had had his suspicions since chapter three, but it would be nice to have confirmation.

He finished his book (he was right about the ending) before Finn was out of the shower, so there wasn't much to do. Unless he felt like doing the dishes, which he never did. Bored, he stuck a hand into his shorts and flopped back on the blankets. Who knows? Maybe he would get lucky when Finn emerged.

Poe opened an eye a few minutes later when he heard the pipes rattle before going quiet, replaced by Finn's footsteps on the slippery tile. After considering it for a moment, Poe pushed his shorts down to dangle around his ankles, spreading his legs more than strictly necessary. Might as well give Finn a decent view when he decided to show up.

"Hey." Finn poked his head into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He looked a little out of it, poor thing. "You seen my green blazer?"

"Your boyfriend's jerking off in front of you and that's all you have to say?" Poe asked, incredulous. "And it's on the dresser."

"Thanks..." After pulling on his pants and undershirt Finn paused, blinking himself into the present, gaze wavering between the dresser and Poe. In an attempt to properly keep Finn's attention, he pushed his sweater up over his chest, arching his back and smirking at Finn as he pushed his tits together by pressing his arms to them on either side. Innocently, of course.

"I'm carrying your child. Pay attention to me." Poe insisted, pulling out his fingers and licking off the slick. That seemed to snap Finn out of it, if the smile that crept across his face meant anything. "And I got a raise, so we should celebrate."

"Shit, really? congrats. Sorry if I'm out of it, by the way. Lot on my mind." Finn laughed as he buttoned up his shirt. His eyes drifted over Poe's body and he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Like, uh..."

"Like what?" Poe stayed wrapped in his cable knit sweater as he pulled Finn down on top of him, though he did ease his boxers all the way off. Those were just getting in the way.

"I have to..." Finn trailed off once Poe pressed up against his chest, taking one of Finn's hands and easing it between his legs. He cupped one of Poe's tits in the other, swallowing down a smile. "Work. Go to work. In half an hour." But instead of following up on that, he started to run his fingers over Poe's clit, his smile growing when he noticed how wet he was. "But I should have time."

"Really? Good." Poe laughed. Finn kissed the corner of Poe's mouth and pushed a couple fingers between his folds. Extended foreplay would be nice, but they were busy people. "You could always use the egg timer..."

"Not a bad idea. D'you have a condom?"

"Why bother? I can't get more pregnant." Poe pointed out, rolling onto his stomach and pushing his ass back against Finn, smiling when he heard Finn's zipper being undone. 

"You have a point..." Finn rolled his eyes and pat Poe's rear end, taking him by the hip and easing inside. Poe's eyelashes fluttered and he sighed at the feeling of being stretched out, Finn's weight on his back like a blanket. For a second Finn just rocked his hips and rubbed Poe's belly, then he froze and slid his hand up to toy at his nipples instead. A shame, that.

"Why'd you stop?"

"'Cause I didn't..." Poe couldn't see Finn's face, but from his tone he was sure his expression was hilarious. "Will this wake it up?"

"What?" Reluctant, Poe cracked an eye open and twisted to look at Finn. "Fuck does that mean?"

"Like, does the baby know we're having sex?" Finn never said it aloud, because he didn't want Poe thinking he was insane, but he hosted a secret fear of poking the baby in the eye with his dick. He knew basic anatomy guarded them from that, but still. An unpleasant thought.

Poe couldn't help but laugh. "Don't make jokes while we're fucking." he chided, rolling his hips back against Finn's, making his breath hitch. "Kills the mood."

"Don't blame me for worrying. What if I thrust to hard? What if I hurt it? What if-"

"Worrywart." Poe laughed. "Just go slow, alright? We'll be fine."

Finn puffed out his cheeks and buried his face in Poe's neck, his hips moving in even, steady rolls. Hopefully his nerves would quiet over the next six months, because he wasn't about to swear off sex for that long. He might actually die. 

"Are the blinds closed?" Poe yawned, breathing in the warmth of Finn's aftershave, the softness of soap and the strawberry shampoo he must have borrowed from Bianca. "Whoever's out there is gonna get a free show if they're not..."

"I closed 'em, Poe. Don't worry." Lazy, Finn raised his head and squinted at the clock hanging on the wall, knowing to subtract the Daylight Savings hour. The number caused him no alarm, so he smiled and stayed nuzzled up to Poe, nose buried in his hair and lips on his ear. Poe's shoulder twitched under him and Finn pressed his fingers to it, massaging out the strain he knew had been building up over the past little month or so. Babies must be heavy.

They stayed like that for awhile, lazy gasps and whimpers interspersed with soft bits of mundane conversation that probably didn't belong in the bedroom. It's not like they had time to talk about it elsewhere, though. After the two of them managed to make up a grocery list, Finn felt Poe twitch around him, sudden and familiar.

 "You close?" he breathed, as though he didn't already know the answer. He could feel the pace of Poe's heart racing in his neck, the heaving of his chest. He nodded and Finn reached down, rubbing Poe's clit and purring against his neck as he gasped and heaved through it, pulsing around Finn's cock. "Take that as a yes."

"Shut up..." Poe groaned, low and muffled in his pillow. He looked back at Finn and stuck out his tongue, his eyes woozy, but picking up on Finn's blown pupils, the sweat dripping down his forehead. "You're next."

 Finn laughed and kept his lips pressed to the back of Poe's neck in an openmouthed kiss, stifling a gasp on his skin, his cock twitching and come dripping down Poe's thighs as he snapped his hips, cursing under his breath.

"Don't cuss in front of the baby." Poe slurred around a yawn.

"As if you don't already." Sighing, Finn nuzzled his hips forward, slowly coming down for it as he softened inside Poe. "You okay?" he asked, kissing Poe one more time before pulling out. He smiled when Poe arched his back, looking like a happy cat on a sunny windowsill. 

"Don't talk to me. 'm asleep." Poe yawned indulgently, flopping down and making himself cosy in his nest of pillows. A collection of them had accumulated on the bed over the past month; everything from throw pillows from the couch, to ones borrowed from Finn and Rey's apartment, and even a princess one that Bianca probably wouldn't miss. "Gimme a kiss, though." 

Ever obliging, Finn smiled and kissed Poe's cheek, leaning down to kiss his belly button, and the baby by extension. "You didn't see that." he told it, giving Poe's stomach a rub before skipping away with a telltale spring in his step. Nothing could ruin today; he was sure of it. "You're too young for that talk..."

 

\-----------

 

"You're cutting the funding for the school program?" Finn looked up from the little jade carving he was analyzing, scowling at the unwelcome guest who had appeared in his office. Didn't vampires have to be invited inside? "Can I ask why?"

"Because I've decided to take things in a new direction." Hux's tone conveyed that said direction left Finn on the wayside. "More exclusive, I suppose. I don't like the idea of schoolchildren in our exhibits, getting their grubby little fingers on our artifacts..."

"They're not  _our_  artifacts. What's the point in having them if people don't learn from them? Exclusivity isn't our goal. At least it shouldn't be." Finn's fingers twitched on the carving and he set it down, hoping he wouldn't shatter it. The past couple months had been bringing him to the breaking point, and this right here was getting close to the straw that would break the camel's back. If Hux said another word, if he so much as breathed in Finn's general direction...

"As your project has failed, I have decided to have Ren take your position. I suppose we could find a place for you here, if you still need a paying job." Hux mused, satisfaction sickly sweet in his voice. "In the gift shop, perhaps."

Finn's lower lip tightened and his eye twitched. Oh, well. There was the straw.

"Gimme a break." Finn got to his feet, shoved his chair back and stalked up to Hux, not caring how much taller the bastard was. "That project didn't fail. I had four schools set up and six more interested. You killed the project without consulting me, and without a real reason to."

"There is a reason. You never submitted the proper plans-"

"We both know that's bullshit. I did the paperwork. I redid it and brought it to the review board after you 'misplaced' it and-"

"Don't dare adopt that tone with me." Hux said coolly, eyes full of warning. "Remember your place."

"Yeah? Why?" Finn laughed aloud, right in Hux's face. This wave of confidence had come out of nowhere, but he saw no issue riding on it. "I've worked my ass off for the past year getting that thing off the ground. And you abuse your position by shutting it down to make me look bad. Not to mention the fact I've been taking care of this entire damn operation while your off drinking with your country club buddies. Who organized more fundraisers and exhibits this year, huh? You or me?"

Hux's lips were pressed together so tightly that they had disappeared altogether, leaving him looking like Voldemort. Seemed appropriate.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. You just turn up to fuck up whatever I'm doing and to flaunt this stuff to whatever heiress is in town that day. This place isn't your fucking living room, showing off your shit to your rich-ass friends." Finn snapped. He was going off on this bastard, fuck everything. "You have no respect, y'know that? No respect for your staff, no respect for what we're studying here. Only thing you respect is a donor with green lining their pockets. And then you're a fucking brown noser."

"Are you done?" Hux managed during a pause in Finn's tirade. His eye was starting to twitch, the greatest emotional response Finn had managed to illicit in the past twelve months. Good note to end on.

"Yeah, I'm done. I'm fucking done. I quit." Finn grabbed his bag and jacket and stormed off, knocking into Ren on his way out the door. "Fuck you especially. Greasy fucking gargoyle..."

"Wait, you walking out? Should've seen it coming. Your type's unprofessional." Ren drawled, leaning against the doorframe.

"Unprofessional is trying to peek into the women's changing room, dickweed. You ain't slick. And tell the Twilight reject that I already fucking quit, so he can't pretend he's the one kicking me out."

Ren tried to block with way and got shoved against the wall, Finn stomping past him and not bothering to look back, deaf to the rather distasteful slurs being yelled down the hall. Huh. He hadn't been called a faggot since high school. This was bringing back memories.

Outside, the fresh evening air struck Finn like a mallet, sharp and stark in his nose, but doing nothing to cool the fire in his belly. He yanked open his car door and tossed his bag into the backseat. Papers spilled everywhere as he clambered inside, dropping down into the driver's seat with a huff, his heart pounding all the way up in his throat, climbing even higher as he considered the ramifications of what he had done.

A baby on the way, and he just quit his job. Had just called his boss a Twilight reject and his crony a greasy, oversized gargoyle. Nerves and adrenaline and a fair bit of triumph all swirled in his head and chest and stomach. He tried to push it down, he really did, but the triumph refused to leave him alone. He could do a jig. Or puke. Or burst into tears. One of the three.

Finn's forehead dropped against the steering wheel, narrowly missing the horn. This would be an awkward conversation.


	15. Chapter 15

It took a long time for Finn to pry his fingers off the steering wheel, to quit trying to forget it all by shifting gear and edging the speed limit. After an hour leaving skid marks on the asphalt he screeched to a halt on the side of a quiet road, trembling from the inside out, an earthquake that just wouldn't give way to aftershocks.

The engine idled and an overplayed pop song blared on the radio. Finn sat there, his mind blank yet racing, thoughts flashing by too quick to catch, now that he was standing still. But if he drove any further he would wind up careening off a bridge or driving straight into a wall. Perhaps not entirely on accident.

He let his forehead drop against the steering wheel and sighed, feeling like a rat was squirming in the pit of his belly, trying to gnaw its way through. He shouldn't have done that. He should have just sucked it up, should have kept his head down, should have taken less than his fair share, should have just let them have their way.

Should he have?

Sick and uncertain, Finn dug his phone out of his pocket in search of someone, anyone. Well, maybe not anyone. There were a few people who would just make him run to the hills.

His mom was still in hospital - apparently the aftermath of a coma was almost as troublesome as the coma itself - so he couldn't ask her for help, for fear of stressing her even more. Bonnie was out of reach by extension. If one was worried, than the other would, too. Couples were funny like that.

Speaking of which: Poe. He couldn't face Poe. Not yet. At some point, but not yet.

Finn stared at his phone as though it would snap at him like a mad dog. He didn't want to call his university friends, couldn't face the professor who had taken him under her wing. He wiped his nose and tapped the first name on his contact list, wondering why he hadn't started with it.

"Rey?" he said softly. "I need help."

 

\----------------

 

Finn's leg was bouncing enough to make the chassis squeak by the time Rey pulled up on her bike, the headlight cutting through the dark and engine growling, far too reminiscent of a monster out of one of Bianca's mythology storybooks, watching and waiting in the bushes. He didn't raise his head, even when the roar died down and he heard a tap on the window, fairly certain that he would come face to face with a hellhound.

"Are you letting me in or do I have to break the glass?"

Rey's voice drew Finn out of the thoughts veering on incoherence, a ray of sunshine, fittingly. He unlocked the door and turned to watch her get in with a box of timbits balanced in her arms. "They're all birthday cake." she assured him, handing over the box and smoothing down her white cotton sundress. It didn't really match up with the Harley Davidson she tore around in, now that he thought about it. Or her steel toed boots.

"Thanks, Rey." He didn't feel too much like celebrating, though. Still, Finn started to nibble on one, the taste waxen and saccharine. Like biting into a scented candle. Not that that would stop him from eating half the box.

"So I heard you quit." Rey began, helping herself to a piece. "Actually heard. From down the hall. You weren't subtle."

"Have I ever been subtle?"

"Fair point. I switched the code on your office door so Hux can't get in, by the way. You can pick up your stuff some night when I'm on."

"Thanks, Rey..."

Finn didn't bother asking how she had done that, never really bothered to ask about all that computer stuff. Since he had met her, Rey had gotten into her school's computers, frozen and unfrozen bank accounts, hacked her friend's grades after a teacher failed him over a disagreement. The shift to digital had been a real blessing for her. In fact, just the week before her friend's ex had threatened to post her nudes unless she got back with him. Rey had hacked into his computer, deleted the pics, and sent his porn collection to his mom. Nasty shit in there, too.

"Not a problem. Hey, I'm the only one there after hours. Do you want me to trash his office?" she offered. The scary thing was that Finn wasn't sure whether she was being serious or not.

"Rey..."

"I'm kidding." she said quickly, taking note of the warning in his voice. Fine, so she wouldn't trash Hux's office. Didn't mean there weren't other ways of fucking with him, though. She flopped against Finn's side and squeezed, burying her face in his shoulder and kissing his neck, wishing his pulse would stop thudding so.

"How do I tell Poe?" he mumbled after awhile, eyes on the flickering streetlights, eerie beacons in the dark. "There's a baby coming, how do I tell him..."

"He's not gonna give you shit for getting out of a bad situation." Rey soothed. She had found out about the baby purely on accident, finding Poe standing at the fridge one night with a container of vanilla ice cream in one hand and a bottle of barbecue sauce in the other. She had sort of put two and two together on that one. "Neither will the baby. Doubt the baby gives a shit." she added on a rather practical note. 

"I still give a shit, though." Finn pointed out. The lights outside all seemed to flicker, but he wasn't sure whether it was his imagination or not. "What the fuck am I supposed to do..."

"I mean, you've got six months until it pops out. I'm sure you'll find another job by then."

"Hope so." Finn tilted his head back and made a face, picking at a worn bit of leather on his seat. He had a bad habit of scratching holes into things. It drove Poe crazy. "I should tell him, shouldn't I?" he mumbled. "I have to tell him."

"Agreed." Rey kissed Finn on the cheek, rocking him a little while she thought everything over. Hux was a bastard, she had known that much. Had it out for Finn since day one. Unfair, that's what it was. And maybe a little worse than that. An idea began to take shape in the back of her mind and she smirked. 

Maybe she wouldn't trash Hux's office.

Maybe she would do something even _better_.

 

\----------------

 

Half an hour later Finn crept into Poe's bedroom, holding his breath as though even disturbing the air would be enough to wake Poe. It might be, actually. He was getting to be something of a restless sleeper. Who knew how bad it would get once the baby actually started moving around in there. Once they hit six months a pin dropping would be enough to get Poe up and asking for an ice cream cone topped with Doritos.

"Did they keep you late again?" Finn jumped and turned to the bed, watching Poe sit up, his hair sticking up in a mess of dark curls and eyes drowsy and trusting. None of that helped to ease the guilt shackling him.

"Yeah, sorry..." Finn kicked off his pants and hesitated at the foot of the bed, shifting from foot to foot, his cheeks puffed out like a child's. "Can I, uh, tell you something?"

"'Course, baby. You're not pregnant, are you?" Poe yawned, eyeing the red and yellow box in Finn's hand. Unfortunately, all that got him was a half-hearted grin. Poe watched Finn as he arranged them both, handing Poe all the timbits he had been too queasy to eat and fussing with the pillows. Once they were settled a good ten minutes later Poe pulled the blankets up to cover the both of them, waiting for Finn to say whatever it was that had him looking so twitchy. 

"I fucked up." he mumbled finally. Was it bad to use that kind of language when he was basically two inches away from a baby? Hopefully it hadn't developed ears yet. "I quit." he said quietly. For the first time, the words really sank in, coating his bones in ice, running hot and cold in his veins. Suddenly feverish, Finn kicked off the blankets and sat up, trying to blink the room into focus as it swam and swirled, clothes spinning in a washing machine. "Oh, God, I can't believe I quit..."

"Finn?" He stayed silent and hunched, sweat growing clammy on his skin. Poe rolled out of bed and crouched in front of him to take his hands. Here we go again.

"I can't..." Finn drew a hissing breath and shook his head. "Fuck."

"Deep breaths, baby. Look at me." Finn's eyes had lost focus behind his glasses and Poe pulled them off. "Do you want your meds?" he asked, cupping Finn's face in his hands. Finn nodded, the motion jerky as a marionette. Poe kept one hand on Finn's cheek and reached into the dresser drawer with the other, pulling out the water bottle and little orange pill bottle they kept there for emergencies. "It'll be okay, baby. Just keep breathing."

"I'm sorry..." Finn pulled away from Poe and curled up with his face buried in a pillow, fingers twitching on the coverlet. 

"Don't be." Poe nudged him upright and handed over the water, but he was still fiddling with the childproof cap. Finn's hand trembled when Poe shook the pills into his palm, helping him throw them back and easing him onto the blankets once he managed to swallow. "Good job, sweetheart. I'll make you some tea, okay? You want to come with me?"

"Yeah."

Five minutes later the two of them were installed in the living room, Poe talking Finn down while he moved around the kitchen, keeping up a quiet, grounding dialogue as the air filled with the smell of tea leaves and honey, warming the whole room. He grabbed a half empty package of cookies out of the cupboard and joined Finn on the couch, still chattering about whatever came to mind.

"My dad has my cradle lying around somewhere. I'm sure we could throw a little nursery together." Poe mused, wishing he had more to offer than Oreos. They were somewhat strapped for cash at the moment, end of the month and all. If Finn bore with him for another week they would have that raise money.

"Does the corner of your bedroom qualify as a nursery?" Finn asked, trying for a laugh as he wrapped his fingers around his mug.

"Sure it does. If a baby's there, it's automatically a nursery. Babies are like mould; they spread."

"Don't be mean to our baby." Finn chided. He let Poe peel an Oreo in half and poke the cookie part into his mouth, answering his smile with one of his own. His heart seemed to get ahold of itself, a little. Seemed to draw itself back into reality. "I'll find a new job, Poe. Had a couple lined up last year, and I still got contacts in a few places. Art galleries, places like that. Modern art one's always looking for people..."

Only problem was how much he had _liked_ this job. Liked the big glass building that smelled of old wood and dry sap, liked working with Rey, liked that it was a stone's throw away from a jogging trail that weaved through dense, wet forests that layered him in browns and greens. Liked the funny habit guests had of sticking their admission stickers to the streetlights up and down the block; and he had loved the art, the cultures, the way they weaved together into a tapestry, distinct and recognizable, but one and the same.

Somehow, broken bottles painted pink and arranged in a unique configuration didn't stir such feelings.

"I know you'll get a new job, baby. I know you will. You're hot property." Finn actually laughed at that. His first in what felt like ages. "Would a blowjob make you feel better?" Poe offered, hoping to lighten up the mood a bit more. It was like bailing water out of a boat; you just had to keep going at it.

"Why are you so horny? You already have a kid in there..."

"Hormones. Lots and lots of hormones." Poe perched himself up on Finn's lap and squeezed him tight, rocking him back and forth. Taking a deep breath, Finn buried his face in Poe's chest, breathing in the soft warmth that seemed to be emanating off him lately, the sweetness of his skin. "It'll work out, Finn. I promise it'll work out."

"Okay." For whatever reason, Finn believed him. Must be a couples thing.

They stayed like that for awhile, but the moment was ruined when Finn felt the couch dip and a chirping little voice piped up at his side, sticky hands patting his cheeks. Why were little kids always sticky?

"Can I have a cookie, Finn?" Bianca asked, squirming in between the two of them and poking Poe's cheek. "I want a cookie, Papá."

"Pumpkin, it's one in the morning..." After sneaking one more kiss on Finn's forehead Poe rolled out of his lap and let Bianca crawl all over him. He was pretty sure the sound of him opening the Oreo box had woken her up. She was definitely his child. 

"If I stay up long enough it'll be breakfast." she pointed out. "Then it'll be okay for me to have a cookie."

"You can't have cookies for breakfast." Finn insisted.

"Why? Papá did yesterday. He eats lotsa candy when you're not here, Finn." she yawned, giggling when Poe started to braid her hair. He had spent a week trying to teach himself how to do a french braid after Bianca had brought him a picture she had torn out of a wedding magazine. It was still a bit wonky, but Finn admired the effort.

"Thanks for tattling. I can't help it. I need nutrients." he said soundly, patting his gut.

"Why? You're old, you're done growing." 

"'Cause it's not for me. I'm pregnant, pumpkin. The food's for the baby." 

"What baby? You're having babies?" Bianca's face split into a smile, her smile lopsided and dimpled, showing off the gap where her two front teeth should be. "Like Mr. Baze's cat did? There's not room for six babies..."

"Hold up there. Just one baby. We'll just have the one."

"But Mr. Chirrut's cat got pregnant, and he had six, and Mr. Baze said that was a normal number." she pointed out. "So you're gonna have six. Pregnant things make six."

"Not how it works, kiddo." Finn snorted and let Bianca clamber into his lap, offering a sip of his tea. Apparently, Chirrut had spent the past two years under the impression that the tabby he had pulled out of the gutter was male. Baze had believed him, they hadn't bothered neutering, and now their apartment was swarming with a litter of mewling orange and black cotton balls. Neither Chirrut or Baze seemed to be complaining, though. Even when they kept finding kittens in their mugs. "Just one baby. In about...six months?" he asked, glancing at Poe for confirmation. "Yeah, six months."

"But if it's just one, then why's it take so long?"

"People are more complicated than cats." Finn said simply. "That's why they take so long to make."

"Oh." Bianca burrowed under Poe's shirt and pressed her ear against his belly, patting around as though searching for the baby. "But you're bigger than a cat, so why d'you only make one? There's more room."

"Because human babies are more expensive than cat babies." Poe pulled his shirt a little up and smiled at Bianca. He couldn't imagine having six of her. As much as he loved her, that was a terrifying image. "We can't take care of six babies. We can barely take care of you, pumpkin."

"Fine..." Bianca pouted and nestled up against Poe, her hands still pressed to his belly. "I _guess_ one baby's okay..."

She was still hoping for at least four, though.


	16. Chapter 16

The next couple weeks Finn was in limbo, and not in the fun way.

He had forgotten what it was like to be between jobs, trying to schedule interviews, adding this and that to his resume. There were about five different places asking for him, and he basically had four of them in the bag. Still, anxiety was a bitch when it came to this kind of stuff.

At the very least Poe was being patient with him, having full faith that he would get something somewhere. So in the meantime Finn was just sort of drifting around doing odd jobs for friends and keeping Bianca out of trouble. That last one was difficult. God knew how Poe coped on his own.

As Finn was running around Poe's apartment trying to cajole Bianca into a pair of pants someone rapped on the door, which was perfect timing, really, what with there being a half naked kid bouncing off the wall. Thankfully, Bianca finally decided to cooperate, grabbing the pants and running back to her bedroom while Finn put himself back together and yanked the door open, hoping he wasn't too much of a mess.

"You're a mess." Bonnie told him as soon as she saw him, Angela nodding in agreement at her side. Well, that was good to know. 

"Hello to you, too. What're you doing here?"

"We heard you quit your job. We're here to console you." Bonnie said simply, pushing past Finn and looking for the kitchen, blinking when she realised she was already standing in it. "Goodness, it's cramped in here..." she mumbled, plopping a plastic bag on the counter and starting to unload her legion of Tupperware containers.

"Cosy." Angela corrected. She swung herself over to Finn and accepted a kiss on the cheek, wobbling a bit on her crutches. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Pretty alright."

"That's not the face of alright, baby. Don't worry about it, understand? We were on our ass more than a couple times when you were a kid. Always pulled through." Angela assured him. She limped over to the couch and sat down with her crutches neatly across her lap, smiling when Bianca trotted into the room and offered her a Girl Scout cookie. It looked like she had discovered Poe's candy stash in the bookshelf. Finn should have known he had squirrelled away more treats. "Hello, Bianca."

"Hi, Angie." As was usually the case with grandchildren, all the discipline instilled in Finn had been thrown out the window. Bianca had Angela and Bonnie wrapped around her sticky little finger. "Why d'you got swords?"

"They're crutches. They help me walk." Angela handed one to Bianca, smiling when she plopped down on the ground and started playing with the height adjustment. "Hurt my arms a bit, though."

"I did offer to carry you, honey. By the way, Finn, you running a daycare?" Bonnie asked suddenly, nodding at the stack of diapers in the corner of the living room, nearly as tall as Bianca. Poe had a sharp eye for sales, and after assuring Finn that diapers didn't have an expiration date he had bought two armfuls of them at half off, not counting the coupon he had clipped. Poe was an expert shopper, really. Finn rather admired him for it.

"No. Papá's having a baby!" Bianca announced before Finn could say anything. "Not six. Just one." she added, still hung up on that. "That's not enough babies..."

"Run that by me again." Bonnie poked her head out of the kitchen and blinked at Finn, who stood like a deer in two pairs of headlights. "Already? How long have you been dating?" 

"Four months?" Finn answered slowly.

"And how far along is he?" Angela prodded.

"Four...months?" Finn answered, even slower.

"Goodness." Bonnie clucked her tongue and went back to arranging things in the fridge, pretending to stay out of it while Finn knew that the drive home would be nothing but her chattering about it with Angela. Sheepish, he scuffed the floor with his foot and shrugged, turning to glance at his mom, who had that familiar arch in her brow. That look still scared Finn a fair bit.

"You two are terrible at contraception." she said flatly. 

"Mmhm. But I'm not complaining. You'll make some pretty cute babies." Bonnie reflected, coming over and cramming Finn's mouth with a sugar dusted beignet. "What d'you plan on naming it? Actually, don't tell me. I don't like that. Naming babies the second they pop out. You should be able to get to know it, first..."

"What's there to know? It's a baby." Angela said practically, laughing at Finn as he walked by. "It craps and cries and eats. It doesn't get much more complex than that."

"Good to know I made an impression on you..."

"Don't be such a grouch. Let us say congratulations to the guy, by the way. Is he around?"

"Think so." Finn managed around a mouthful of doughnut. Last Finn had checked Poe was lying in bed, half naked and covered in Oreos. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but the truth wasn't too far off. "I'll go get him..." 

Hopefully Poe wouldn't protest about having to put on pants before noon on his day off, but Finn wasn't hopeful.

"What's going on out there?" Poe yawned, rolling onto his back and blinking at Finn as he slipped inside and closed the door. As Finn had suspected, he was reading and snacking and wearing nothing but a maroon hoodie zipped halfway over his belly. Usually Finn wouldn't be complaining - hell, he would usually be celebrating - but this seemed like a situation that called for some decorum. "There a fire?"

"May as well be. Mom and Bonnie are here. Put on some pants." Finn had never imagined a situation arising where he would have to say that to Poe. 

"I don't wanna." Poe rolled onto his back and looked down at his belly, balancing his mystery novel on the ridge of it with a sigh. "Can't, really. All my pregnant pants are in the wash." Which meant two of the three pairs Poe owned. "I'm gonna have a muffin top. From every angle. Real full figured muffin..."

"You're a hot muffin. Straight out the oven. Better than a muffin, actually. You're a cupcake." Finn laughed and tossed Poe a pair of jeans. "I believe in you."

"That makes one of us. Hey, do they know I'm pregnant? Your mom and Bonnie." Poe asked, hopping around and trying to wriggle his pants up over his hips. To no avail, though. "Can't remember if we told 'em..."

"I didn't tell them. Didn't want to put Mom back in hospital from a heart attack. Bianca sold us out a couple minutes ago, though."

"Gotta love that kid." After doing the shimmy for a little while longer Poe scowled and flopped facedown onto the bed, admitting defeat. "Why is that bigger?" he mumbled, twisting and peering at his ass. Finn's eyes drifted that way too, but he was just appreciating the view. "There's not a baby down there..."

"You're the only one complaining." Finn assured him. 

"Shut up. You're buying me cupcakes later, by the way." Poe flipped Finn off, rolled over, and then he began a second, valiant attempt at fitting into his pants.

 

\------------

 

"What's the other ninety-nine percent?" Poe asked, picking up a carton of milk and squinting at the label.

"What?"

"It's one percent milk. What's the rest?"

"Are you high? Because that can't be good for the baby."

"Not my fault. Baby's talking. I'm getting pregnancy brain..." Poe shrugged, sticking the milk into their basket and pouting when Finn pulled out the two containers of butterscotch pudding Poe had managed to sneak in there. Angela and Bonnie had taken Bianca for the day, but instead of fucking or going on a date Finn was just tagging along with Poe while he ran errands. Not what he wanted to do with his spare time, but he supposed this was what parenting entailed. Unfortunate.

"We got more to do after this?"

"Don't think so. We went to the bank, right?" Poe asked. Finn nodded and pried the chocolate syrup out of Poe's hand, figuring this was another instance of that pregnancy brain he had been talking about earlier. "Nothing to do for a few hours, then. Got the ultrasound at four." He smiled a little and rested a hand on his stomach. "Get an explanation for why this kid's so fucking big..."

"Don't be mean. Since we got time I gotta go check the house. Thermostat's doing something funny and the tenant's too nice to bring it up..."

"Your mom's house? Don't think I've ever been there." Poe let Finn pull him away from the doughnuts display and towards the checkout, albeit regretfully. Maybe that was why his pants didn't fit, now that he thought about it. Didn't really give a shit, though. What was the point in being pregnant if you couldn't eat whatever you wanted?

Of course bringing a child into the world was the point, technically. Miracle of birth and all. But being allowed to dump french fries on top of an apple pie without any repercussions was a pretty major perk. 

After being dragged out of the store, down the street, away from a bakery, and onto the bus, Poe found himself standing in a nice part of town, looking up at a brick and plaster house, complete with a bright white wrought iron fence. Idyllic, really. Especially considering how damn expensive shit was in this city.

"Your mom's fucking loaded." Poe shook his head, watching Finn unlatch the whitewashed gate. "How much money you guys got?"

"Lotta book royalties." Finn admitted, crouching and looking for cucumbers in the foliage at the edge of the pathway. The previous owners had taken out the lawn, replaced it with vegetable gardens and a fig tree. Apparently that's what they were, the funny looking trees with tropical looking leaves. Poe saw them all over the city but had never found out what they grew.

"Hey, Finn." Someone poked their head out of the grape arbour at the other end of the garden, a spindly guy with unkempt scruff and eyes a bit too big for his dark, angular face. "There's a zucchini by the basement window. There was a spider on it earlier, though. Might want to get rid of it." 

"Thanks, Bodhi. Hey, did you get-" Finn was interrupted by the screech of tires behind them and the blare of a horn. Poe jumped, but Finn and Bodhi just sighed. "Think you're being summoned."

"Can't she just phone like a regular person..." Bodhi mumbled, trotting off towards the sports car idling on the corner. "Bye, Finn. And bye, boyfriend I didn't really meet."

"Bye, Bodhi." Finn got to his feet, smirking when Poe pulled a leaf out of his hair. "Tenant. He met Bianca one day when I came over. He's nice. His sister's scary, but she's nice, too." Finn assured Poe, who still seemed to be processing as someone's arm reached out of the car and tugged Bodhi inside before speeding off. All in the span of about five seconds. 

"I'll take your word for it." Poe snorted, following Finn through the gate at the edge of the yard. While Finn tinkered with the radiator Poe wandered through the snug little backyard, hidden from the neighbours on one side by a tall whitewashed fence, and on the other by a veritable wall of dense green bean sprouts, surpassing him in height. But that wasn't all that difficult, come to think of it. Poe plopped down onto the grass, rolling his shirt up over his stomach in the hopes of giving the baby some sun. He framed it with his hands and sighed. He had been able to pass Bianca off as a prominent potbelly, but this kid seemed determined to make itself known. 

"You look happy."

A voice swam up into Poe's ears about half an hour later, pulling him out of a sleep he hadn't realised he had drifted into. He drew his eyes away from the shifting shadows of leaves above him, letting his head loll towards Finn with a lazy smile on his face. He was a bit dusty and singed, but still radiant.

"Probably 'cause I am. Dunno why." he yawned. "Better than normal mood swings, at least."

"That's true. Remember when you started crying during that car insurance commercial?"

"Shut up." Poe pulled Finn down and kissed his cheek, nuzzling under the soft curve of his jawline like a puppy. "It's just nice here, I guess. Peaceful. Dunno the last time I lay down on some grass..." It was kind of sparse in his apartment, after all. 

"Yeah. I miss it here." Finn dragged his fingers through Poe's hair, clearly thinking something over. Poe could practically hear the cogs turning in there. "Hey, so I was thinking..."

"You were thinking..."

"Shush. I was thinking that once I get a steady job, we could live here?"

"Huh. I'm listening." Poe pushed himself up onto his elbows and grinned at Finn, his chest fluttering. The idea itself seemed intangible, even though they were laying in the yard, even though Poe could feel the grass under his fingers. "I'm confused, but I'm listening."

"Just, y'know. Bianca and this kid'll need more room." Finn began, his voice tentative. "Your apartment's too small, and Rey isn't about to move out of our place..."

"Go on." Poe urged, the idea beginning to grow on him. 

"Well, the mortgage is paid, too, and there's a pretty good school down the road. And Bodhi's moving back east with his sister, so it's not like we're kicking him out. And mom and Bonnie were thinking of moving into Bonnie's summer house up in Parksville. She got it in the divorce."

Finn brightened the more he listed off, obviously having spent awhile daydreaming about the possibility of this, everything the two of them could have. Well, the four of them. "And then Bianca could have her own room? And the baby could, too. And I could have a real office, and you could have a workshop in the garage. And there's room for a sandbox over there, and more flowerbeds, and..."

And then Poe pulled Finn down on top of him, and for the next hour they were very glad the neighbours couldn't see into the yard.

 

\-------------

 

"You ready?"

"Never ready. For anything." Finn admitted, shifting in the staticky chair Dr. Kalonia had pushed him into. Good thing Poe had an obstetrician on hand, because Finn didn't know much about this shit. Even with free healthcare, he wasn't big on the whole checkups thing. He was the kind of person who just ignored ailments no matter the nature of them. One time he had just wrapped a wool sock around an oozing yellow gash in his knee and called it a day. He still had a scar there, actually. "So now what?"

"Nothing much, really. Don't you worry about it." Kalonia assured him, setting up the monitor while Poe arranged himself on the examination table, fiddling with the thin paper sheet crinkling underneath him. "So what do we want to know, kids? Aside from there being normal development." 

"Nothing, really." Poe shrugged. "I figure if it's good news, I'll cry. If it's bad news, I'll cry. I don't much feel like crying, so just tell me if there's something breathing in there." he concluded, squirming while Kalonia spread goo on his stomach. "Jesus, forgot how cold this was..."

"Do babies breathe in the womb?" Finn wondered, watching Kalonia's monitor boot up, a fuzzy image appear alongside a plethora of letters and numbers he couldn't understand. "Isn't there like, amniotic fluid..."

"Figure of speech, baby. Let it slide." Poe squeezed Finn's hand, refusing to look at the screen as Kalonia passed the probe over his belly. "Is everything okay?"

"Mmhm. Lot going on in there." Was all Kalonia had to say about it. "Heartbeat's good. 161, I'd say. Strong, too. You're sure you don't want to know anything?" she added, glancing between them, her expression unreadable. Doctors always had that look. It made Finn nervous. You could never tell whether they were going to chop off your leg or announce that your lactose intolerance had miraculously been cured. 

Poe shook his head again. "But you're making it sound like we need to know something." he said slowly, glancing at Finn. "Why does it sound like we need to know something."

"I'm suggesting you might _like_ to know something."

"How important is it that we know this something?" Finn piped up. "Is it a bad something?"

"Or is it just something?" Poe interjected. "I want to know."

"You're sure?" Kalonia asked.

"No." Finn mumbled. "Actually, no. I want to know."

"Then just so you know." Rolling her eyes, Kalonia turned the monitor to them, pointing out the two pulsing heartbeats, the soft white curves of two little heads. "You may want to make more room in the nursery."

For a moment, both of them were quiet, staring at the buzzing monitor and trying to make sense of the blurs of black and white. It was like staring at a Rorschach test, only they already knew what they were looking at.

"Twins." Finn said slowly, testing the word on his tongue. "We're having...twins."

"Huh. Son of a bitch..." Poe's wide eyes darted from the screen to his stomach and back again, watching like a ping pong match as Finn, meanwhile, sat stark still, everything slowly clicking into place, his brain trying to reboot. Eventually Poe shook his head and turned to Finn, clearly trying not to giggle when he saw his lopsided smile.

"At least it's not six." he said practically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's star wars how could i not


	17. Chapter 17

"Did you wash all of the peaches?"

"Mm?"

"The ones that were sitting on the counter."

"Mmhm."

"You're not supposed to."

"Mmph?" Poe looked up from his colander of peaches, one stuck in his mouth like a trussed pig. Kes made a face at him, but Poe wasn't particularly worried about looking stupid. What could Kes say about it, after all? He was pregnant. People weren't allowed to judge him when he was pregnant. Which was what he told himself as he spread peanut butter on his peach and crammed it back into his mouth. "Why?"

"You're not supposed to wash peaches until right before you eat them." After dropping that bit of old person wisdom, Kes managed to maneuver himself down onto the couch under the window with a huff, easing a pillow against the base of his spine. His car was in the shop, and he was clearly too old to take transit. "They go bad quicker."

"Well dang, I guess you'll have to make a pie with 'em. What a shame. Or a peach cobbler. Those are good..." 

"I can't stand you." Kes announced, although his expression brightened as Bianca danced across the kitchen in a flouncy pink tutu, twirling and pirouetting on her way to the backyard. She had been digging through the toy box Kes had unearthed from the basement a few months back, and seemed to have found a couple gems. So that was why Kay had been wearing a bedazzled plastic tiara. "That why you two came over? To ruin my produce and make me bake your desserts?"

He was actually glad for the company, seeing his tired old house come to life a little, but what was the point in being old if you couldn't act like a grouch now and again?

"That was part of it." Poe admitted. "But mostly I wanted to ask if I could have mom's engagement ring." 

"For what?"

"Take a guess." A moment of silence where Poe just waited for Kes to put two and two together. He had never been great at math, though. "It's for _Finn,_ dad. I'm giving it to Finn." Fingers crossed that he would take it.

"You're proposing to him?"

"Yeah? I mean, he knocked me up." Poe pointed out. "Gotta make sure he doesn't run away and leave me holding the bags." And three children. Those would probably be heavy. "Pretty simple, really." 

That part was simple, but there was also the fact that Poe was head over heels in love with the guy, completely smitten, over the moon at the mention of his name, had taken a chance and found a home in those warm brown eyes . His dad didn't need to know the details, though.

"Well, it's in the little music box on the mantlepiece if you want it."

"Thanks, old man." Poe got to his feet, stepping over Kay and around the well-tended potted plants crowding Kes' living room. Their lush greenery and mingled perfumes lent the room a festive air, being somewhat claustrophobic, and rather cloying in places. Just like what Poe recalled Christmas with the family to be.

The memory of painfully posed pictures and friendly, tipsy relatives fresh in his mind, Poe set aside an orange hibiscus and picked a little box off of the stone mantle, weighing it in his hands, considering the simple cedar lid, featureless aside from a stamp in the center of a white mask, faded to grey with the years. After retrieving the ring from the little drawer on the front of the box he lifted the lid, twisted the key, and watched the tiny figurine inside come to life, pieces of childhood becoming a bit clearer with each tinkling note.  

"This used to be mine." he recalled as the monkey rocked back and forth, the clink of its painted tin cymbals slightly out of time with the music. "Where'd we get it?"

"New York, right? _Phantom_ gave you a scare, so we bought you the music box as a peace offering." Kes had spent the whole intermission trying to calm Poe down, pacing up and down the stairs and getting weird looks from the usher. He hadn't realised the chandelier hanging above them actually fell during the performance. He and Shara had paid good money for those orchestra seats...

"Why'd you guys have to go when I was five? I don't remember anything." 

"Not our fault. The dollar was up and your mother and I were cheap. I wish we could've gone when you were older...we took pictures, though." Kes nodded at the overstuffed bookshelf tucked into the sunny little corner of the living room. Poe had spent hours pretending to do his homework over there. It was right below the heat vent, too, so that was a plus. "Gonna show them to everybody at your wedding. Good blackmail material."

"You do that and I won't talk to you for another decade..." Poe ran his fingers over the monkey's little red vest, glittering with scratchy gold piping. Kes watched him, his chin resting on the heel of his hand, a pose Shara had teased him for time and time again. She said it made him look like The Thinker. 

"Give it to Bianca, why don't you? The box, not the ring." he suggested. "It's just gathering dust over there..."

"Nah, she's too destructive. The babies can have it. We'll stick it up high, where they can't get to it." Poe hummed. It was a pretty cute monkey, actually. Nothing like your typical, terrifying little cymbal primate, baring their teeth as they crashed their cymbals at you. And the motion was definitely _at_ you. Those things were downright aggressive.

"Fair enough..." Kes sighed and got to his feet at the mention of incoming family members. The babies were the only things capable of softening him enough to make him willing to bake Poe impromptu desserts. For a couple minutes he set about cheerfully mixing up his batter and tuning his radio, but then he paused, Poe's words finally finding their way through his thick skull. "What d'you mean _babies?"_

They left an hour later, Bianca enthralled with the music box, Poe toting along a pan of cobbler. Kes watched the two of them from the window, still smiling from the news. One baby had been more than enough for him, but _two?_ That just seemed to him an excessive amount of joy. He hadn't been this happy since Shara had pulled him aside one day and asked him to help her clear out the spare room.

As pleasantly nostalgic as only lonely old widowers can be, Kes cut himself a piece of cobbler and shuffled outside with a scrapbook under his arm, Kay limping along at his side, curling up at his feet once he eased himself down onto the sagging old bench that sat on his even older porch. Humming, Kes hooked his thumb on the thin chain around his neck, looking at the two wedding rings that had hung there for the past twenty-five years. They could do with a quick polish.

"The kid's doing fine, Shara." Kes let his voice be lost in the sound of rustling leaves and passing cars, let it be carried off to wherever it had to be. "Just fine."

 

\------------

 

"Start in two weeks." Finn managed a halfhearted smile as Poe came over and kissed his cheek, handing over a piece of peach cobbler that Poe only had taken two bites out of. They had been lounging around on the couch together after Finn staggered out of the shower, shaking off the nerves of a call from a new job. It was a decent position, really. More than ideal. Associate curator at the art gallery. Good pay, easy commute. He couldn't complain.

Well, he could, but he would try and refrain.

"Cheer up, sweetheart. I'm proud of you." Poe smiled and flopped down at Finn's side, reaching up to rub his shoulder. He still looked pretty put out by this whole thing. "The babies started kicking a couple hours ago? Well, one did. Baby A, I think..."

"Really? Can I feel?" All of a sudden Finn brightened the way Kes had, scrambling over and pressing his hands to the convex curve of his belly, poking around to see if anyone was awake. The good thing about twins was that he was about twice as likely to make contact. "This early, though?"

"Not that early. Four months is about right." Poe hummed. He felt a flutter under his ribs and guided Finn's hands towards the action. "You feel that?"

Finn nodded, his smile so wide that Poe feared he would pull something. "Hi, kid..." he said under his breath. "Which one is it, d'you think?"

"Baby A, I'd say. That's the one on top." Baby B didn't move as much. They just pressed up against Poe's bladder and made life difficult. He still loved 'em, though. Despite the constant need for bathroom breaks.

As Finn was trying to wake up Baby B with kisses and nuzzles, he heard a familiar knock on the door. More of a pounding, really.

"Oh God. Rey's come for us." Poe laughed. "Hide the children."

"They're pretty well protected, I'd say." Finn pat Poe's belly and rolled to his feet, staying in his towel as he answered the door. After all, they were roommates. He couldn't count the number of times she had walked in on him when he was wandering around wearing nothing but his personality. Their apartment was rather hot in the summer.

"I have news." Rey announced, pushing past Finn with no mention of his semi-nudity. 

"What? Did you get someone pregnant?"

"Nah. I know how to use a condom. Unlike some people..." Rey winked at Finn and set herself down on the couch, laughing when he smacked her with one of Bianca's stuffed animals. Those were always lying around. Ideal for bludgeoning people, really. "You know it's true. And you're naming the kids after me, right?"

"You can't have both..."

"Sure I can. Rey and Ray. Anyways. News. And it's about our buddy Armitage, so Finn should listen..."

"Now I'm intrigued." Poe hopped up onto the counter with his bag of Lucky Charms, surreptitiously picking the dehydrated little marshmallows out of the cereal. Typically Finn would object to such barbary, but he knew that Poe would just pull the pregnancy card. He always pulled the pregnancy card. "Who's Armitage?"

"Hux."

"His first name is Armitage?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"I dunno. Just, who looks their child in the eye, right after giving birth to them, and says: _I'm gonna call this kid Armitage. Yeah. That's cute. That's a name I think of when I think of my newborn._ He must have been an ugly baby, for that to be an option..."

"Are you done?" 

"I'm never done."

"Anyways." Not even married and these two were bickering like a couple grandparents. Baze and Chirrut were very proud. "I got into his computer a couple weeks back, and turns out he's got sticky fingers."

"Really?" Poe blinked at her, his cheeks full of marshmallows. "What's a rich guy doing stealing? That should be my job. If I had a nickel for every time I was called a welfare queen, I wouldn't have been on welfare..."

"Yeah, the guy screams trust fund. You're not serious, are you? The man's loaded. What did he-" Finn started to ask, but he was interrupted by his ringtone blaring over in the room. He scrambled over to it and Poe pretended not to notice when he nearly lost his towel on the way.

"Hello? Oh, hello, ma'am." The two people Finn called ma'am were his mother and the museum director, and foreshadowing pointed to this being the latter. Poe and Rey poked their heads around the doorway, watching him pace the little bit of bedroom floor there was, nodding as she spoke. Poe caught his eye and he nodded, getting the hint. "Wait, you fired him? And Ren, too?" Finn asked her, for the benefit of the eavesdroppers. "Oh, wow..."

"You're behind this, aren't you?" Poe asked, turning to Rey, laughing at her Cheshire cat smile.

"Maybe. Got into his account and switched the address on an order he made for some artifacts. Sculptures or something. I dunno. He was gonna sell them to some private collector and take the cash, but I sent it straight to the director's desk."

"You're a fucking genius."

"Aren't I?" Rey proffered her knuckles for a fist bump, setting off a complex little handshake she and Poe had perfected on late shift at the garage. "I gotta run, Dameron. But does this mean one of the kids is getting named after me?" she asked about two minutes later. It was a long handshake. 

"We'll talk about it. We fucking owe you one, after all..." Poe let Rey run off and went over to wrap his arms around Finn, kissing along his neck while he tried talking civilly to the director. Poe was making it pretty difficult, he knew, but at the same time he didn't really care.

"Alright, great. I'll be there. Thank you." Trembling a little, Finn disconnected and collapsed in bed with Poe on top of him, finally allowing himself to let out a burst of relieved laughter.

"We're buying Rey a gift basket." Poe sat back and cupped Finn's face in his hands, smiling when he tried to nod. "Well, that worked out nicely."

"That's an understatement." Finn sighed in relief and flopped back on the bed, his bones seeming to have turned to noodles. "I guess we can start moving into that house, now."

"I guess we can." Poe agreed, cramming another handful of cereal into his mouth. He let Finn pull him in for a hug, grinning down at his gut. "By the way, should we name one of them Armitage?" 

"I will take away your marshmallows."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you want to scare poe tell him you'll take away his food


	18. Chapter 18

Four months later Poe sat up in bed, sweat tacky on his skin and a bad dream hanging cold in the air. That had been unpleasant. Something about a county fair and unfiled tax returns. Horrors.

"Finn?" he whispered, patting around his slipshod collection of sheets and blankets. Poe insisted on keeping half a dozen piled around him, despite the fact that he was too warm for them. He would try getting out of bed and turning on the lights, but doing so eight months pregnant in a dark, cluttered room seemed like a bad idea. They were still working on the whole unpacking thing. Two months after moving in, but still. Poe had played the pregnancy card on that. He wasn't sure if that applied in this situation, but he would keep playing it until those babies popped out.

"Finn?" he tried again. But perfect stillness pervaded the room like a fearfully held breath. A moment later he was answered by heavy footsteps on the staircase, the bedroom door creaking rheumatically on its hinges. Still half in his nightmare, Poe huddled down under his blankets and squeezed his eyes shut, fully anticipating being murdered with a chainsaw, or at least an ax. He had written a will, right?

Then the light flickered on overhead and he blinked, squinting at the figure in the doorway. Thankfully, it was not that of an ax murderer, but a very bleary Finn clutching a 7/11 bag to his chest, wearing nothing but Poe's leather jacket, mismatched flip flops, and some old sweatpants. Not a good look on most, but Finn could pull off anything.

"Where'd you go?"

"Down the street. For the past week you've been waking up from nightmares asking for ice cream, but you always fell asleep before I could get any. Figured I might as well take the initiative." Finn pulled an aggressively cheerful red carton out of his bag and kissed Poe's forehead, handing over a plastic spoon with it. "You okay?"

"No. I'm pregnant. Never okay when I'm pregnant." Poe mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate chips and caramel. One of the babies kicked when he swallowed, protesting the sudden drop in temperature. Well, at least he knew there was something alive in there. With Bianca he had had to get fetal monitoring. She had been rather lazy in the womb. He hugged the carton to his stomach and sighed in relief. It was still frosty from the freezer, and he didn't give a damn if the babies didn't like it. It was their fault that he couldn't regulate his body temperature, after all. "I thought you were an ax murderer..."

"I pity any ax murderer who even attempts to ax murder you." Finn admitted, flopping down across Poe's lap and licking the ice cream off the bottom of the lid. "You'd beat their ass, pregnancy notwithstanding."

"How? It took me five minutes to put my jeans on yesterday." Poe reminded him, poking a spoonful into Finn's mouth. "And ten minutes to take 'em off again when I decided not to go outside."

"Why'd you stay in?" Finn asked, tilting his head back and trying to see Poe over his belly. The day before he had been invested in a project at work, hadn't noticed that it was dark outside until Rey turned up for the late shift. "You're usually the one dragging me out to go places..."

"I dunno." Both babies kicked and Poe resisted the urge to rap his knuckles on his belly. He had the same relationship with these things as he did with the neighbours in the old apartment. He could only hope that it would improve with time.

"You must know, sweetheart." Finn insisted gently. "What's wrong?"

Poe bit back another dunno, cramming a melting spoonful into his mouth instead, wincing at the biting cold. "This is just weird, I guess? New neighbourhood, new people who don't know me, new people who are gonna wonder about the guy with a beer belly who comes home one day looking twenty pounds lighter holding baby carriers...I don't want to put these two at risk, I guess." Poe shrugged, smoothing his hand over his burning belly. Finn noticed and rolled over to the bedside table, digging out a pretty pink tube of lotion and popping off the cap. "You know we get some pretty crazy reactions when people find out about this."

"Ain't that the truth." Finn warmed some lotion between his palms and let Poe guide his hands to his chest, smiling when he sighed in relief. "Itchy?"

"You have no fucking idea." Poe leant into Finn's familiar hands, perfectly comfortable with being poked and prodded, letting Finn work his way around without bothering to tense up or look good. He had given up on preserving any pretense of physical decency around the six month mark, once it became difficult for him to tie his shoelaces. "I really had thought you had run off, for a second there..." he admitted, opening one eye and watching moonlight slide across Finn's face.

"Now why would I do that?" Finn traced the fractal lightning pattern of stretch marks on Poe's sides. "You're stuck with me, sweetheart."

"Good to know." Finn felt something shifting underneath his hand and smiled down at the outline of an elbow, or maybe a foot. He had been able to separate the babies from the rather horrific _Alien_ imagery a couple months back. It had taken a fair bit of work, though.

"Which one's kicking?"

"A." After a second Poe grunted and pressed his hand to his side. "And B. Pains in my ass, the both of 'em..."

"You're so mean to them..." Finn groaned as he peppered kisses to Poe's belly, smelling roses and tasting shea butter. Didn't taste as good as it smelled, that was for sure.

"I got reason to be annoyed, don't I? I didn't get this big when I was pregnant the first time. His eyes drifted down and he sighed. "You could balance a damn laptop on this..."

"There's two babies in there, remember? 'Course you're a little bit bigger. Feel free to blame it on me."

"No need for permission. I've been blaming you this whole time." Poe laughed, patting Finn's cheek.

"But what if they're identical?" Finn asked. "Then from a biological standpoint, it's your fault."

"Nope. It's now and forever your fault." Poe said simply. "Fuck science. It's your fault."

"Fine, it's my fault." Finn agreed, just because it was easier than arguing with the guy.

"Thanks for admitting it." Poe pushed himself upright and stretched, going over to the window and sliding it open, taking a deep breath as he dug through the little box he had left on the windowsill. Thankfully, his lungs still had enough space to do their job. Everything else? Not so much. "One more month, right?"

"One more month." Finn agreed. He stretched out in the space Poe had left, rearranging the pillows the way he knew Poe liked. "Then things are gonna settle down, right? Well, not really, but you'll be able to tie your shoelaces, and you won't need me to get you off all the time 'cause you can't reach..."

"You saying you aren't gonna eat me out anymore?" A reflection danced across the ceiling, a shard of white light. Poe clasped his hands tighter together and the light flickered out. "Then what's the point?"

"'Course I'm gonna eat you out, sweetheart. Don't you worry about that."

"Oh. Good." Poe snorted, letting his forehead drop against the windowpane. It wasn't really a dealbreaker, of course it wasn't, but it was a thing Poe liked to know before committing.

Not really. He was just stalling at this point. Why? He wasn't sure. Finn had stuck around this long, hadn't he? What was a few decades more or less?

"So..." Poe took a deep breath, staring at his fingers, picturing what he was holding in his clasped hands. "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Sure thing." Finn pushed himself upright and went over to Poe, wrapping him up in a blanket and kissing the back of his ear. "You want another container of ice cream?"

"Nah, it's a bit...a bit more than that..." Poe tilted his head back, though he kept his hands curled against his chest, as though holding his heart in them. That may very well be the case.

"You want two more containers?"

"I want you to quit being a goof and listen to me." Poe gripped Finn's shoulders and held him out at arms length, though his baby bump was still prodding up against Finn's stomach. Well, at the very least they would have witnesses for this. "So..." Poe puffed out his cheeks and sighed. "It's no secret that I've been pregnant just about as long as I've been dating you..."

"I'm pretty sure that condom from the first night was expired..."

"Which officially makes this all your fault. Anyways, being pregnant with Bianca was a nightmare, and this is twice as worse. But for some fucking reason..." Finn nuzzled against his hand and Poe smiled, managing to keep his voice steady. "For some reason this has been the best year of my goddamned life. It's been a ride, sure, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Neither would I. Is this going somewhere?" Finn asked, taking note of the hand Poe was keeping curled against his chest. "Tell me if it's going somewhere. Because I gotta know whether it's something I have to panic about or not. Or if it's something good, that too, might panic about that, though..."

"Don't hurt yourself." Poe rolled his eyes and held out the ring, as much to calm his own heartbeat as to answer Finn's question. Finn's eyes widened and he blinked, his mind slowly working to understand, though Poe really couldn't think of a clearer indication of what he was asking.

"So, Finn, what I've been meaning to ask is..." Poe wasn't sure the words were even making sense at this point, or whether they were just dissipating like mist, disintegrating in the frosty December air fluttering through the window. "Will you marry me?" he managed, his voice a little broken.

For a moment Finn was quiet, staring at the ring being offered to him, a star somebody had plucked out of the sky just for him. "How the hell did you get this? And yes." he added, cupping Poe's hand in both of his and squeezing. "Yes, of course yes. It's beautiful. Perfect. I'm actually going to pass out right now. But expensive looking." he couldn't help but add. "How..."

"I asked my dad for my mom's ring awhile back." Poe slipped it onto Finn's finger and smiled, his eyes crinkling shyly at the corners. "Never got up the courage 'till now, I guess."

"Better late than never." His heart was trying its very best to burst out of his chest. "Did I already say yes?"

"Yes, you jackass..." Poe took Finn's hand and smiled, inspecting the ring, given new life now that it was on somebody's finger. "I'm surprised it even fit..."  
  
"Thin fingers." Finn snorted, dragging Poe back to the bed, arranging them both on their sides. He buried his face in the back of Poe's neck and sighed, twining their fingers together. It ruined the moment a little when Poe started squirming, though.

"I wanted to be the big spoon." he mumbled. "Stupid babies..."

"Don't be mean." Finn chided, still smiling at the ring which had come alive in the moonlight, glittering on his skin.

"I'm allowed to be mean. I'm carrying them around." Poe pointed out. He laced his hand in Finn's, kissing the knuckle right below his ring. "Y'know, we should celebrate."

"Now?

"Mmhm."

"I have work tomorrow..." But before any further protests could be made, Poe took Finn's hand and pressed it to his swollen chest. Finn could never say no to those, that he knew for a fact.

"We're celebrating." he agreed.

 

\-----------

 

Afterwards, Finn collapsed at Poe's side, stretching out his shoulder and gasping, the sweat on his skin liquid mercury in the moonlight. Any intimacy was a delicate acrobatics display for him, at this point. Like a galleon skirting the edges of a continent, careful and slow, mapping out every curve and edge. Only generally continents didn't stop you in the middle of sex to ask if there was any mac and cheese left in the fridge, and if there was, would there be any oatmeal in the pantry to go with it.

"You alright?" Poe yawned, letting his head loll Finn's way.

"Mm..." Still in a daze, Finn opened one eye and kissed Poe's glistening cheek. "You?"

"Sticky." Poe snorted, casting a glance downwards. His legs were still spread wide, so Finn just rolled between them, slipping a pillow under his ass and kissing his clit, still swollen and sensitive. "So considerate..."

"I try."

They stayed like that for barely a moment more, then suddenly they heard a stampede of one charging down the hall. They blinked at each other, recalled they were naked, and yanked up the blankets right as the door was kicked open with astonishing force. Poe would be signing this kid up for soccer.

"Papá? Finn?" Bianca crept inside, cradling her teddy to her chest. "Why's there noise?"

"What noise?" Poe asked, combing out his curls. Finn stayed huddled under the blankets between Poe's legs, silent and still. As though Bianca wouldn't notice the lump at the foot of the bed just because he wasn't making noise.

"What's Finn doing?"

"Looking for his..." Poe's cheeks reddened, feeling Finn's tongue drag against his clit. This motherfucker. "...for his sock. It fell off. But he's concentrating on finding it, so be quiet." Poe pressed his index finger to his lips, to really ram the idea home.

"Quiet." Bianca agreed in a whisper. "But what was the noise, Papá? The creaks and the groaning and the-"

"That was..." Poe felt Finn tense between his legs. "The wind." he decided, keeping his sheets wrapped tightly around them both as Finn licked at his folds. "Guess there's a storm going on out there."

"Can I sleep with you here?" Bianca asked, giving him puppy eyes. Damn those irresistible eyes. "Storms are scary." 

"Sure, pumpkin. Just..." How to stall? "Go...go get a pillow from your room, okay?"

"Okay..." Bianca didn't really understand why she had to do that, but she trotted away regardless, leaving Teddy behind to watch them. She couldn't imagine the things those lopsided button eyes had seen.

"You are _awful_." Once she was gone Poe dragged Finn up into a kiss, shaking his head and letting Finn dress them both. "You're the fucking worst..."

"Love you too, babe. Still want to marry me?" Laughing, Finn pulled back and made room for Bianca when she ran back in, smiling when she clambered up and curled up between him and Poe, her face up against Poe's belly. She stared as intently at it as she did at shop windows lit up with holiday displays.

"Hi hi, baby." she cooed, her breath puffing warm against Poe's skin. "When do I get to say hi for real?"

"In a few weeks." Finn yawned, still working a kink out of his shoulder. They had decided to keep the twins a surprise for Bianca. It may not be six babies, but two would likely tie her over. He hoped.

"And in a few weeks Papá's gonna explode!" Bianca announced, blowing a raspberry and throwing out her arms to demonstrate Poe's imminent fate. "Then no more Papá."

"If that was how it worked, Papá would've been long gone, pumpkin." Poe poked Bianca in the belly and smiled. "I would've exploded when I had you."

"You did explode. That's what those are." she insisted, poking Poe's stretch marks. "Stitches. You got sewed back together after you exploded."

"He didn't explode, kiddo." Finn assured her, tucking her in properly between him and Poe, snugly bound so that she would hopefully quit squirming. That would just wake the babies, and then Finn would never hear the end of it from Poe. Although he had grown rather used to being an emotional punching bag.

"Then how did the babies get out? Rey showed me a real fun movie, and that's how the guy had his alien baby."

"That's nice, pumpki- wait," Poe's brow creased in concern. "Rey showed you _Alien?"_

Finally, after a little more squirming, and a lot more questions about alien babies, Bianca's eyes fluttered shut, lashes casting a delicate shadow on her cheeks. Poe, clearly still reeling from the whole _Alien_ thing, covered her in another blanket and sighed, shaking his head.

"Three of these." Finn said slowly, watching Bianca breath, her chest rising and falling under her thin Hello Kitty nightgown. "We're gonna have to try and have sex with three of these running around."

"Damn." Poe looked down at his belly and sighed, giving the parasites a loving pat. "Can we send them back? I have the gift receipt."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look proposal


	19. Chapter 19

"Why would you want garden gnomes? They're an eyesore." Baze asked, watching Chirrut run his hands over a particularly obnoxious one wearing nothing but a bright red cap and green speedo. He should have known coming to Home Depot was a mistake. For whatever reason Bianca had a strange fascination with the place.

"Exactly. Everyone suffers but me." Chirrut said happily, sticking it in their cart. Baze removed it a moment later, and didn't notice when Bianca put it back for Chirrut's benefit. Those two always seemed to be in cahoots.

"Why don't you like gnomes?" Bianca asked Baze. She was having trouble grasping his aversion of them. "They're funny."

"If only he could understand that." Chirrut sighed. "If we had a proper garden like Finn and your old man, we would fill it with garden gnomes." he declared. "We would have an army. They would be invincible. You are short enough to join." he decided, patting Bianca on the head. The idea seemed to please her a fair bit, and she dashed off to conscript more members. Baze just sighed and let her do as she pleased. If worst came to worst he could use the gnomes as target practice.

"I can't tell if she is your enabler or you are hers..." Baze sighed. Who knew the role of honorary uncle could be so exhausting?

Bianca was spending the weekend being passed between relatives, honorary or otherwise. C-sections left very little room for a five year old to be running around the hospital, after all. Odds were she would try and endear herself to the doctor while they were trying to make the incision. That might complicate things.

"I think we should start getting to the hospital. Finn said around two o'clock." As Baze glanced at his watch to confirm, he failed to notice when Bianca snuck another gnome into the cart. 

"Good thinking. Then I can ask about getting bionic eyes and Bianca can meet the baby." Chirrut agreed, scooping her up and flipping her upside down. Bianca squealed in delight, waving her arms around as he carted her back towards the parking lot. "I'll start the engine, Bazey, so don't bother rushing."

If anything, that just made Baze wheel the cart towards checkout even quicker.

 

\----------

 

 After spending Saturday night with Bonnie and Angela, Sunday morning with Rey, and the rather eventful afternoon with Baze and Chirrut, Bianca found herself in Kes' lap in the hospital room they had prepared for the new additions and Poe, who this whole business would make very uncomfortable, according to Bonnie. She refused to divulge the specifics, though. Bianca figured she would ask Poe himself once he turned up, which Kes said would be in an hour or so. 

So over the course of that hour she counted ten people in funny white and blue uniforms passing by the door before losing track of them, wondering instead why there were plastic bags on their feet. Papá did that sometimes, though. When he didn't feel like taking off his shoes he would just stick grocery bags over them and grab whatever it was he needed before going back out to the garden. More often than not it was a cookie or something. These people ought to have a cookie, Bianca thought. They seemed tense. And as she listened in on them, Bianca felt herself start to tense, too.

Because as the nurses and doctors passed on their way from surgery, a word kept reappearing, one she hadn't heard before, a big, scary one she would have to check the dictionary to understand. Papá would have to lift it, though. It was too heavy for her.

"Abuelo? What's a hem ragging?" Bianca tugged at the edge of Kes' sleeve as she clambered up into his lap, curiosity getting the best of her.

"Hemorrhaging." Kes corrected, his voice sounding as though it came from the bottom of a swimming pool. But instead of answering when Bianca asked what that meant, Kes started humming an old lullaby, rocking her back and forth like she was the baby they were waiting for, his eyes on the washed out watercolour on the far wall. He had done this dozens of times, managing to always get her to sleep, even if she had just eaten candy and was bouncing off the wall. But for whatever reason, this felt different. Bianca felt his hands twitching against her stomach as he held her. Even the stub on his left hand where his ring finger had been was trembling, a leaf about to be blown away in a storm.

"Should I get Papá a cookie?" Bianca asked after awhile, watching Kes gather up his things. For whatever reason the flow of plastic people had stopped, so now only she and Kes remained in the room, their only company the beeping intercom and swift, squeaky footsteps from down the hall. Apparently a nurse had come out and told Kes it might be best if they call it a night while Bianca was napping. Why, Bianca didn't know for sure. And for whatever reason, Kes wasn't telling her.

"Not right now." Kes said gently, taking her hand as he led her back outside. "We'll come back tomorrow, sweetheart. Your Papá...your Papá needs rest."

 

\-----------

 

"Bianca can come in an hour or so. Give him a day or two for everybody else." The baby squirmed and whimpered in his arms, quieting a bit when Finn put him back in the plastic tub half filled with warm water. He seemed to like that. "Doubt he could handle Bonnie, right now..."

"Fair enough." Kes closed his eyes and sighed, resting back against the wall. Finn had called right after he managed to set Bianca down for a nap, interrupting the nap he had planned on taking for himself. He didn't mind, though. Not when the babies were involved. "Is he okay?"

"High as a kite, but he's okay, now. He's asleep." Finn glanced back at Poe, smiling at the baby girl curled up on his chest. The nurse had used her as a walkthrough for how to bathe the babies, so now Finn could be trusted on his own with the boy.

"Thank God. What happened?"

"Started bleeding pretty bad on the way to the recovery room. Trouble contracting, the doctor said..." Finn didn't know the fancy medical terms for this stuff. "Wound up in surgery for a few extra hours..."

After Kes' initial panic at the words, reassurances were proffered, a couple pleasantries exchanged, and promises made to swing by in a couple hours with a certain older sibling. The conversation wrapped itself up neatly and simply, as conversations between the two of them always did. Kes sounded like he needed rest, and Finn was just eager to get a chance to hold his son for a little while. Poe was rather handsy with them, so Finn had to take what he could get.

"It's okay, little guy. It's okay..." Finn soothed, drizzling some water over the baby's head. That actually put a toothless smile on his face. "You've got a lot of hair, don't you..."

After getting his fill of nuzzles and cuddles he draped the towel over his chest like the nurse had shown him and wrapped up the baby, tickling his scrunchy lump of a nose. He had come out looking rather lopsided - ditto for his sister - but a few hours with some wriggle room had given him a chance to round himself out a fair bit, make his cranium far less pear shaped.

"There we go, baby. You're all clean now. Feel better?" The baby hiccuped and Finn kissed the top of his head, tasting baby oil and soapy water. Better than the taste of half a dozen bodily fluids. He had not thought it through when he kissed his daughter the second they pulled her out. "Your name isn't "baby", by the way. We'll name you two once Papá wakes up." he promised, patting down the mane of candyfloss curls under his hand. The baby's squinty brown eyes roved across the room, and Finn pretended they settled on Poe. "Yep. That's Papá." he agreed. "And that's your sister. Doesn't have a name yet, either..."

"She's got a name." A garbled voice piped up from the bed. The timbre reminded Finn of all those messy college parties, people stumbling around with drunken, half-formed words dripping from their lips alongside the rum and root beer. God knows what was in that IV Poe was strapped to. "You're lying, she got a name. I named her, but it's a secret..."

"Hey, Papá." Discreet as could be, Finn pulled out his phone and flipped to video as he turned to Poe, a smile on his face. He had a feeling this would be a moment worth capturing. "How d'you feel?"

"You're hot." Poe slurred, managing to focus on Finn. It was always straight to the point with him. "You want to be my boyfriend?"

"No can do, sweetheart. I'm already you're fiancé." Finn pointed out. "Being your boyfriend sounds like a demotion to me."

"We're engaged?" Poe's eyes went wide, and for the first time he seemed to notice the baby he was holding, squinting at her like a calculus question. "Oh. So did we make this?"

"Yep. Homemade, sweetheart. All natural ingredients." Laughing, Finn lay the baby he had been washing in Poe's other arm, smiling when he latched onto his nipple with a satisfied churr. This one didn't cry all that much. A very accommodating newborn. They both were. "Don't drop 'em."

"Won't." Poe let his head loll, scrutinizing the babies with all the focus of a professional chess player. If the professional chess player had just gotten fucking baked. "They look like pugs." he mumbled finally. "Wrinkly. I don't want pugs for babies." The mere thought of it had Poe sniffling and hiccuping, tears rolling down his cheeks as he sputtered out a tearful accusation. "You...you made me have pugs for babies. Pug babies. Pugbies..."

"They're not pugs, Poe. I swear." Finn would treasure this video for all eternity. "God, you are so high right now."

"Yeah." Poe sniffled wrathfully, but he agreed without protest, squeezing the babies a little tighter as rivulets of tears rolled down his cheeks. "Why am I crying?"

"Because I made you have pugs for babies." Finn reminded him. That was probably cruel, but Finn couldn't help himself.

"Oh." Poe's face crumpled up like a can in the crusher as the tears started up again. "But you...why would you _do_ that?" he demanded. "I don't _want_ pugs for babies..."

Finn could not wait for Poe to see this video when he was sober.

 

\--------------

 

Bianca woke up in another pair of arms, her face buried in a familiar chest, warm as an oven. She curled her fingers in the collar of Finn's shirt and yawned, her eyes fluttering in the dimmed light. She was sure it was coming from the lamp in the corner of the living room. Bianca liked that lamp.

"Morning, kiddo." Bianca felt a kiss pressed to the top of her head. "You want breakfast?"

"Want Papá." she mumbled, raising her head and blinking both the hospital room and Finn into focus. There were bags under Finn's eyes, but above those bags there was an undeniable twinkle. Suddenly she understood why Poe could yammer on about Finn's eyes for such a long time. She felt someone tugging on her hair and smiled shyly before turning to look at Poe, laid up in a hospital bed and looking exhausted. "Hi, Papá."

"Hey, pumpkin." Poe's grin was lopsided and his voice a bit too loud, the words knocking against each other like bumper cars. Bianca found herself reminded of the time she rode the merry go round for too long and couldn't stop giggling as the world kept spinning around her. "Wait a minute. You're too big to be Bianca. She's just a baby..."

"I _am_ Bianca. And I'm five." She held up her hand for emphasis. "Five."

"No, no, Bianca's still a baby..." Poe insisted. His drowsy gaze meandered over to Finn, and somehow his smile managed to get even more lopsided. "And _you're_ gorgeous. Have we met?"

"I should think so. You just gave birth to my children." Finn reminded him. Hadn't they already gone over this? "And we're gonna be married in a few months."

"Wait, really?" He couldn't seem to believe it, his eyes going wide with childish wonder as Finn showed him the ring on his finger. Poe smiled at him before turning to inform the nurse adjusting his IV that her eyes were the prettiest he had ever seen and she must be so smart to do all this medical stuff and Poe thought she was the very best nurse in the whole entire world...

"Papá's being weird." Bianca whispered in Finn's ear, covered up by the nurse's shoes squeaking on the scuffed linoleum floor as she left. If Finn wasn't mistaken there was a pleased smile on her face.

"He had to take a lot of medicine." Finn snorted. Propofol and Pitocin and morphine, to be exact. Quite the cocktail.

"Why?"

"Had to cut open my tummy, that's why." Having accepted that she was in fact his daughter, Poe pulled his hospital gown to the side and pointed out the neat row of stitches running up his midsection. Bianca had the nerve and stomach of a military surgeon, so he wasn't particularly worried about shocking her with a couple staples in his stomach. After all, her favourite movie was Indiana Jones, specifically the bit where the Nazis head exploded. She was a funny kid.

"So I was right about the exploding. Was that why there was so many plastic people?" Bianca rubbed her eyes and blinked at Poe. "Did something bad happen?"

"It was just a little bit complicated, pumpkin. Don't worry about it. We're all okay now." Poe hummed. His wits seemed to be coming back, then he announced he would pass out before promptly doing so. Maybe he wasn't quite normal, yet.

"That was interesting." Finn snorted and pulled Poe's blankets up over him, kissing his cheek. "You want to meet the babies, Bianca? 'Bout time they had a feed, anyways..."

"Uh huh." Bianca blinked, thinking it through for a moment. _"Babies?"_

"Twins." Finn confirmed, turning her around. Sure enough, there were two prim little warming beds by Poe's cot, each holding a tiny bundle of blankets. Bianca hadn't noticed them at first, but now her eyes lit up and she squealed in delight, clinging to Finn's neck as he held her over them, speaking in a smooth, measured voice that tried not to betray an ecstatic tremor.

"That's Angelita. I call her Angel..." A tiny little girl with wrinkled copper skin and no hair to speak of beneath her green knit cap. "And that's Aaron." He was a little bit bigger and much paler, so his mane of thick black curls stood out, coiled around his scrunched up face like an ornate picture frame. They had decided on the names in a moment of lucidity for Poe, one Finn was glad to have caught. Because in Poe's less reasonable moments he had suggested Mac and Cheese, Bend and Snap, and finally Fred and Georgina. Finn had actually let himself consider that last one, though.

"Hi, babies." Bianca breathed, smiling when Aaron curled his fist around her little finger. Smiling, Finn scooped up Angel and settled her on Poe's chest under Bianca's watchful gaze. While he was fussing with Poe's hospital gown Poe opened his eyes, drowsy and soft. "They're so little."

"Angelita's five and a half pounds, and Aaron's six and a bit." That pretty well explained the hemorrhaging. Poe's body just wasn't built to carry around nearly twelve pounds of shits and giggles. Finn wasn't sure anybody was built to do that. 

"Four ounces." Poe yawned, guiding Angelita towards his nipple and smiling when she latched. "Five pounds nine ounces, and six pound four ounces. Get your numbers right, why don't you..."

"Grumpy, are we?" Finn caressed Poe's cheek, finding it still tacky with sweat. "If anyone has earned the right to be grumpy, it's you."

"Ain't that the truth..." But Poe seemed to relax once there was a baby in each arm, a smile spreading across his red, splotchy face. He kissed them both, kissed the top of Bianca's head, and rested his cheek on Finn's shoulder, letting his eyes drift shut. He wasn't going to remember any part of this, clearly. Good thing Finn had had his phone out the whole time. He snapped one more picture of Poe cuddling the twins before tossing it onto the foot of the bed and stretching, letting Bianca clamber up into his lap.

"Finn? Are the babies gonna call you Finn?"

"Probably gonna call me Dad or something. Why d'you ask, kiddo?" He was starting to feel drowsy himself. Whatever Poe had was catching.

"Just, just 'cause I was thinking...can I call you that, too?" Her voice was soft. Softer than it was in her classroom, softer than in the library, even softer than it was in the dentist's office which terrified her so much. Warmth spread through Finn's chest and he pecked her on the forehead, trying to pucker his lips through a smile.

"'Course you can, kiddo." he said, keeping his voice as soft as hers. "It would be an honour to be your dad."

Bianca's drowsy face blossomed into a smile and she wrapped her arms around his neck, not minding the funny burn of rubbing alcohol on her nostrils. "Not even step dad. _Real_ dad." she affirmed. "'Cause I think Papá made me by himself, so you're not replacing anybody."

"Fair enough." Finn laughed and ruffled Bianca's curls. "Now get some sleep, okay? Sweet dreams."

"G'night, Daddy..." Bianca's voice faded against Finn's shirt, leaving behind the warm imprint of her breath. Finn pat the top of her head and sighed, rocking her in time with the music playing in the other room. He was officially a father of three, he realised, adjusting Angelita's beanie and wiping milk from Aaron's pink lips. Imagine that.


	20. Chapter 20

_"Twins?"_ Bonnie asked, blinking at Finn as he ushered her and Angela into the recovery room. Poe had been shackled to it for the past day, which hadn't been a problem until the painkillers wore off. Then he got rather antsy. The nurses hadn’t appreciated it when he tried to do wheelchair wheelies in the hall. “You're saying two tadpoles made it through? Lordy. That's what you get for driving without the brakes." she chastised, summoning up the facade of a disapproving schoolteacher. "Can't avoid accidents."

"We used a condom..." Finn mumbled after decoding the unfamiliar turn of phrase. She had a thing for spur of the moment euphemisms.

"Mm. And how old was the condom?"

"Not that old. A couple...years?" Finn was pretty sure Rey had picked it up in a high school sex-ed class. Warm in the cheeks, he meandered over to Poe and adjusted the twins on his chest, shaking his head at him as he started to wake up. Poe wasn't supposed to get out of bed quite yet, but mysteriously, the kids kept finding their way out of their warming beds and into his arms. Finn had no clue how that had happened.

"Finnegan Langston Alde, I did not raise you to not check the expiry dates on condoms." Angela sighed, wagging her head. Clearly the disapproving headshake was genetic. She strode over to them and handed Finn one of two neatly wrapped gift boxes, both in cheery shades of mint and lavender. The other she dropped in Poe's lap, smiling at the babies as she did. "And I bet your dad drilled that into your head too, Dameron."

"We never had the birds and bees talk. Don't think the old man knew how it worked himself, honestly..." Poe yawned, easing one eye open in time to catch Finn's mortified expression. "And your middle name's Langston?"

"Mom, why did you tell him..."

"What? You're engaged." Bonnie pointed out, giving Poe's shoulder a squeeze and combing out his sweaty tangles. "He would have found out on the marriage licence. Might've run off on you. Aren't you happy he knows?"

"Yeah, Finnegan. Aren't you happy?" Poe seemed to find great joy in this. Apparently there were benefits to having had the freedom to choose his own name.

"Can't say I am." To distract from his shame, Finn plucked Angelita out of Poe's arms, offering her up to Angela as a peace offering. Or sacrificial lamb. "You want to hold this?"

"What do you think we came for? Hello, baby." Angela cooed, bouncing her granddaughter cheerfully in her arms. "They're gorgeous, aren't they?"

"Like a couple dumplings." Bonnie agreed, coaxing Poe to hand over Aaron. "You're a cutie, yes you are..."

"Good genes." Finn smiled, kissing Poe's forehead while he unwrapped the gifts. He pulled an aggressively fuzzy fox stuffy out of the box in his lap and hugged it to his chest, his smile getting even wider when Finn handed him the matching dog. Not quite as comforting as the babies, but he could make do. And he didn't have to worry about dropping these.

While Poe tried to get the babies acquainted with the stuffed animals, Kes crept into the room, toting along a dented package hurriedly taped and stuffed into some wrapping paper left over from Christmas. He had never excelled at wrapping. Opening a gift from him generally took two pairs of scissors and a lot of prayer. Tentative, Kes stopped at the foot of the bed, his eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation. The babies were a couple squishy little things, both with enormous, staring brown eyes. Emphasis on the staring.

"They won't stop looking at me." he realised, walking back and forth and watching the babies watch him. "Why won't they stop looking at me?"

"I think it's 'cause they like you." Poe finished feeding Aaron and kissed his forehead, nuzzling their noses together. "You want to meet Abuelo, little guy? You look like him, actually..." But he hiccuped and whined as Poe set him in Kes' arms, initially squirming away from his touch. 

"Guess not..." Kes mumbled, trying to recall how to support a baby's head. What if he broke his neck? That would be a shame. At least they were in a hospital.

"Give him a minute; he'll get used to you." Finn assured him. "He didn't like me at first, either. Probably 'cause we don't make food."

"Yep. That's all I am to them. Food and cuddles." Poe yawned, undertaking the Herculean task of unwrapping the box Kes had set in his lap. A smile spread across his face as he pulled out two bright red onesies with Thing 1 and Thing 2 expertly stitched on the front. Homemade, from the look of them. "You do embroidery?"

"Occasionally." Kes handed back the baby and went over to scoop up Bianca, who had been napping on the chair in the corner. Dropping her wouldn't be quite so disastrous; she was a fair bit sturdier than a newborn. 

"Hi, Abuelo..." she yawned, blinking her eyes open. "Did you see the babies?"

"I did, sweetheart. They're pretty cute, don't you think?"

"Papá thought they were pugs." Bianca yawned. "Daddy showed me a real funny video of 'im. Papá was on lots of medicine..."

“I’m gonna have to see that, sometime. He's your dad, now?" Kes glanced at Finn and smiled. "Congrats on the promotion, kid."

"Thanks." Finn snorted, winking over at Bianca. The promotion didn’t come with a raise, unfortunately, but he didn’t mind all that much.

"Now I got just as many parents as everybody else's got." Laughing, Bianca rolled out of Kes' arms, following Finn as he arranged the gifts and flowers and balloons that were crowding every available flat surface. Baze alone had brought along four bouquets. An orange one for Poe, calla lilies that appeared to have been dipped in a sunset for Angela and Bonnie, and two matching clusters of tea roses, dyed in a pastel rainbow, like the reflective gloss on a bubble. Presently he and Chirrut reappeared with an armful of blush pink hydrangeas and an enormous teddy bear. A day out of the womb, and these kids were already spoiled.

"Are those for me?" Bianca's face lit up as Baze presented her with the flowers, barely withholding a flourish as he did. He feared she would be feeling rather neglected in the shadow of the new arrivals. Having been the middle child in a family of ten, he knew the feeling.

"Have we all met?" Bonnie asked, casting an appreciative eye over Baze. She didn't even bother hiding it when she checked out his ass. At the very least Chirrut couldn't see where her eyes were going.

"Mom has, you haven't. Baze, Chirrut, this is Bonnie. My..." Finn still wasn't quite sure what her position was. Stepmother? Though she wasn't really replacing anyone. The only father figure in his life was a vial of donated sperm, after all. "My mom's girlfriend."

"Hey there."

"Charmed. If you're looking at my husband's rear, please be kind enough to describe it to me." Chirrut hummed as he and Bonnie shook hands.

"Pleased to meet you, too." she chuckled. "And it's very firm. Shapely, if you will."

"Ah, that I knew." The both of them stood back, as though appreciating a work of art in a museum. Chirrut did remember he couldn't see, right? "Magnificent, isn't he?" he hummed, nodding thoughtfully. 

"Mmhm. I appreciate a man with arms strong enough to throw me across a baseball field." Bonnie giggled, elbowing Chirrut's side. "You willing to share?"

"Sadly enough, I've tried to convince him our bed's big enough for three. He just won't listen." Chirrut sighed and shook his head, turning it woefully in Baze's general direction. "No fun."

"Must you schedule a threesome in broad daylight?" Baze mumbled, fussing over the bouquets and trying to hide the flush in his ruddy, pockmarked cheeks.

"Have some decorum." Kes yawned in agreement, cuddling Bianca close to his chest.

"Angie? What's a threesome?" Bianca asked, looking up from her flowers in time to ask the important questions.

"Nothing you need to know about." Angela pat her lap and smiled when Bianca trotted over without question. She was rather like one of those funny little Pomeranian fuzzballs Bonnie had brought up from down south. Her husband hadn't been able to nab those in the divorce, thank God. "Have they got names yet, by the way?"

"No. They're still Baby A and B." Poe snorted. "Kidding. Angelita and Aaron."

"Middle names are Rey and Kestrel." Finn added as Rey trotted back inside with two big gift bags and a box of cupcakes decorated with pink and brown stripes. Could you bring cupcakes into a hospital? Poe didn't seem inclined to ask questions, immediately cramming the red velvet cupcake she offered into his mouth.

"Kestrel?" Bonnie looked rather befuddled by the choice. "You expecting him to hunt down mice for a living?"

"Not a bad idea; exterminators make decent money. Kestrel's his full name." Poe nodded at Kes, who had gone a handsome shade of crimson. Apparently Finn wasn't the only one in the room who hesitated before handing over his passport. "Mom called him Birdbrain."

"Sure, laugh at the old man..." Kes grumbled, letting Rey pluck Aaron out of his arms and hand him back to Poe, swapping with Angelita. That was probably for the best. If he held the kid for any longer he would have a heart attack. Baby steps, he figured.

"I got a middle name?" Rey asked, nudging Finn with her elbow and letting Angelita suck the icing off her thumb. She was pretty good with babies, hadn't dropped one yet.

"'Course you did. You're their aunt, aren't you?" Finn pointed out. "And I had to pay you back somehow for the job."

"That you did. Whose last name?"

"They get both." Aaron hiccuped in his arms and Poe gave him a butterfly kiss. Finn knew the nurse had told him to get as much skin to skin time as possible, but this seemed excessive. Or maybe Finn just wanted a turn holding one of them. Trying to get his hands on the babies was like musical chairs, and he was definitely losing this round. "Aaron Kestrel Alde Dameron. Got a ring to it. Doesn't it, kiddo?"

"Pretty long ring..." Angela hummed, taking Angelita and bouncing her on her knee. Not to say she favoured her over Aaron, but she appreciated the fact that she now had a proper namesake.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" Bonnie tickled under Angelita's chin. "You're gonna get all the girls when you grow up, yes you are..."

"Are we just assuming she'll be a lesbian?"

"'Course she'll be. No man deserves her." Bonnie declared, kissing Angelita's forehead. Poe snorted and rested his head on Finn's shoulder, both of them watching the grandmothers fussing and cooing while Kes hovered curiously over them, like a vaguely anxious guardian angel. Bianca crawled into bed with Poe and he draped an arm over her, careful to maneuver her away from his stitched up tummy. He didn't feel like replicating _Alien._

"This is nice." Finn heard him mumble, his voice slurring a little bit. 

"Yeah?" Poe nodded against his chest, or maybe his head was just lolling. Despite that he seemed pretty happy, his eyes soft and dewy beneath his lashes. Or maybe the drugs weren't all the way out of his system, yet.  "Sleepy?” 

“Uh huh.” Poe curled up against Finn and closed his eyes, going perfectly pliant in his arms. “G’night.”

“It's three in the afternoon, sweetheart. But sweet dreams.” Once Poe dozed off Finn rolled his eyes and laughed, scooping up his phone and nudging Rey with it. "By the way, you have to watch this."

\------------------

"Go to bed, pumpkin..."

"Not yet, Papá. I can do it, I really, really can do it." Bianca insisted.

"Well..." Damn those puppy eyes. "One more try." Poe agreed, flopping back against the wall and rubbing his forehead. He glanced at the calendar Finn had stuck to the cork board amidst coupons and permission slips and prescriptions for the new glasses Poe hadn't gotten around to picking up yet. At least it wasn't a school night. "Don't break anything."

Determination glowed in Bianca's face, a flush that accented the freckles she always sported in the summer. One more deep breath, a running start across the basement, and after a moment’s hesitation she finally managed to throw herself into a cartwheel, tumbling lopsided across the faded carpet. Poe caught her before she could slam into the wall, making her shriek and giggle as he peppered her smiling face with kisses. 

"I did it!" she squealed, squirming in his arms and bouncing up and down, the monumental nature of her achievement making up for her accumulated bumps and bruises. "Did you see me, Papá? Did you?"

"'Course I saw. I was sitting right here, wasn't I?" Bianca giggled and Poe slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "I'm proud of you, don't get me wrong, but it's midnight. You have to go to bed..." 

"But tomorrow I can try backflips, right?" Bianca persisted, eyes alight with the sparkle of sequins and coloured spotlights. Kes had won himself a couple tickets to Cirque du Soleil, and the acrobats had entranced her to no end. Poe was vaguely concerned he would find her dangling from the ceiling lamp, one day. She was the type to pull those kinds of stunts.

"We'll save that for another day." Poe kissed the top of her head as he tucked her in, snug and unseasonably warm beneath her favourite Beauty and the Beast comforter. Even in the summer, she insisted on wrapping herself up in it. Poe worried about heatstroke, sometimes. “Comfy?”

“Yeah. I like this house." Bianca informed him around a yawn. Over a year living in it, but apparently the charm had yet to wear off. 

“You do? Why?”

“It's pretty and got lots of space." To demonstrate she spread her arms out, revelling in the luxury of a single bed. Her "cosy" little corner in the apartment had been too small to accommodate such indulgences. “And there’s flowers outside. I like it.”

"I like it, too. Now go to bed, alright? Love you, pumpkin.”

“Love you too, Papá. And I love Daddy. And Mac. And Cheeto.” 

“Yeah, I love ‘em all, too.” Poe snorted. The drunkenly proposed nicknames of Mac and Cheese had developed over the past six months, recalling Poe's high school habit of crumbling cheese puffs over his macaroni. It became especially apt once Angelita sprouted a head of bright copper curls, almost orange in certain light. A mystery where she had inherited those from, but Poe assured Finn that they would get dark as Poe's own hair once she got a little older. She would have made a striking ginger, though.

Once Bianca was finally convinced to fall asleep Poe crept out into the hall, picking through the minefield of stuffed animals and colourful wooden blocks. On his way past the nursery he discovered Finn on his knees at the side of Aaron's crib, the way he recalled people genuflecting in church. Although generally one didn't go to church in boxers and mismatched wool socks.

"They okay?" Poe yawned, padding over and wrapping his arms around Finn's neck. His wedding ring caught the light and he smiled at it, his face reflecting strangely in the silver. A quiet little affair, their wedding: no more than thirty people milling around Kes' backyard or playing video games in the basement. It had probably looked more like a barbecue than a wedding. The only real hint was the cake, which hadn't lasted long, and the arbour creaking under the weight of deftly arranged lilies and roses, all in soft shades of pink and cream. Baze had had a field day arranging that to his liking, making sure it remained in a precise state of calculated disarray. Poe was surprised Baze had managed to stay in his seat when a rosebud went askew during the vows.

"I want to make sure they're breathing..." Finn mumbled, his cheek squished up against the railing of Aaron's crib. "I keep saying I'll leave after each breath, but then there's a pause and I have to stay..."

"That's why we have baby monitors, sweetheart."

"Too impersonal. Besides, I like watching them. Which sounds really fucking creepy, now that I'm thinking about it."

“Nah, it’s a parent thing, I think. Doubt there’s gonna be a problem, though. They're well behaved.” Poe squinted down at Aaron, who still was breathing as he should be. But was that just because people were watching? He rested his elbows on the railing beside Finn and sighed. “Too well behaved..."

“Are you staying here?”

“Guess so. Thanks for the the paranoia, sweetheart.” Behind him he heard a plaintive little whimper, more of a kitten's mewl than an actual cry. "Hi, Cheeto..." Poe sighed, turning and scooping up Angelita, who seemed to be keen on getting some attention. "Oh, no. You're getting my nose." he mumbled, pinching her little snout. She was still pretty squishy, so he figured perhaps there was a chance of him moulding it into a shape more like Finn's. A slim chance, but it was a parent’s job to keep their child from emotional distress, wasn’t it?

"Your nose is fine, Poe." 

"No, it's too big. It has its own gravitational pull." Poe insisted, dropping the nose issue (for now) and trading babies with Finn, who plopped down on the ground with Angelita. "I'm surprised there isn't a tiny little moon orbiting it..."

"Dramatic..."

“’Course I am. It's in my character description.” Poe pretended that Aaron was nodding in agreement. Though that was probably just a six month old's attempt at holding his head up. He was getting quite good at it, in Poe’s humble opinion.

Aaron cooed and giggled up at Poe as he tugged wheedlingly at his shirt, his smile showing off the two deep dimples in his cheeks. He and Angelita were thriving, thriving to an extent Poe hadn’t fully understood, at first. He had expected them to be a couple spindly little things, but at six months they were as heavy as Bianca had been at eight months. Poe nuzzled their noses together and sighed, peppering Aaron's heart shaped face with kisses. 

This was so, so different. With Bianca there hadn’t always been room for this; for constant cuddling and nuzzling and cooing. He had been too tired, most of the time, drained by all those hours of odd jobs and looking for work and overtime once he did get steady work. And what had he had to show for it? All anyone ever commented on when he was out with Bianca was what a skinny baby she was. 

"I wish we could've skipped to this bit." Poe mumbled, setting himself down in the rocking chair by the window so Aaron could latch on properly. 

"Which bit?" Finn tickled the soles of Angelita's feet and she giggled, rolling onto her belly to get away from him. Didn't exactly make him feel like a favoured parent. To her he was just the useless freeloader with no food to offer. 

"The bit with the happy kids and the nice house and general financial security." Poe's thumb trailed over Aaron's smoothly rounded cheeks, like two freshly picked apples. His eyes roved around the room while he nursed and Poe wondered what he was looking for. "I like this bit."

"I think we all do." Finn kissed Angelita's nose and scooped her up, watching her kick and stretch in curious delight. Everything must be exciting when you've only been around for half a year. 

“Yeah, but just…” Poe puffed out his cheeks and sighed. “You know shit was hard, before you came along. Wasn’t exactly raking in the cash.”Finn shuffled over on his knees with Angelita in his arms, flopping down at Poe’s feet. "But there was good stuff leading up to this, don't get me wrong. Our first date at the benefit was nice…”

“I’m sorry for ruining it with my awful dancing.” Finn sighed, letting his head loll back on Poe's thigh. "I have been practising, though..."

"You have?"

"Yeah. After I fucked up the first dance at the wedding." 

"You didn't fuck up that bad, sweetheart."

"I nearly fell on the cake." 

_"Nearly."_ Poe pulled out his phone and got to his feet, settling Aaron in his crib and tossing his phone on the changing table, offering his hand to Finn as the prelude of _Waltz of the Flowers_ began to swell through the room, woodwinds carrying a gentle majesty and the harp dreamy and silken in the moonlight. "Shall we?"

"Romantic son of a bitch..." Finn sighed, putting Angelita back in her crib.

"And that's why you love me." Poe twined his fingers with Finn's and counted him in, not minding that he was already dragging the tempo. They danced chest to chest, waltzing around the stuffed animals Bianca hadn't cleaned up and the picture books strewn across the carpet. It was lazy, and Finn was basically falling asleep against Poe's chest, but he couldn't be happier.

"You're getting better." Poe mumbled after awhile, pressing a kiss to Finn's temple in an attempt to perk him up a little.

"Flatterer." Finn yawned. Maybe that was the truth, but Poe wasn't about to say so. At any rate Finn was more than worth the bruised toes. Smiling, Poe kept his lips pressed to Finn’s forehead and let his eyes flutter shut. The gentle motion of rocking and the tinkling music was almost enough to lull him to sleep standing up. Then he glanced at the cribs and his brow creased up a little. “Finn?”

“Mm?”

“Are the babies still breathing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is very difficult to keep track of twins idk who's holding who half the time


	21. Chapter 21

Finn adjusted his bowtie and rested up against the bar, taking a break from his persona as gracious host to pout at his drink. At the very least Hux wasn't around to make snide comments about his colourful cocktails any more. With him gone, Finn could drink all the Cosmopolitans he wanted.

Not only was he enjoying his vodka and cranberry juice, but also the prestige which came with being a head curator two years before thirty, presiding over charity events frequented by people twice his age and with three times his net worth. Finn still found that in itself rather staggering. An offer had been made for a promotion to director, but were he to climb any higher up the ladder Finn was certain to have a stroke. Besides, having a life outside of the museum was a rather attractive prospect. He was too cosy at home to basically give all that up. And having to go to more parties didn't appeal to him in the slightest. 

"This seat taken?"

Finn smiled into his glass before turning and clinking it against Poe's, nodding in approval at the blue suit he had borrowed out of his closet. Only now it was their closet, really.

"What's it to you?" he asked, greeting Poe properly with a kiss on the cheek. The three words alone had made Finn relax, the familiar timbre of Poe's voice dissolving the tension which had built up over the course of the evening. "So what's a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

"You tell me. The ball and chain told me to put on a suit and dragged me here. He's a pain in my ass." Poe admitted, smirking over the top of his glass at Finn. It was filled with root beer, but Finn chose to pretend they were enjoying a classy moment together. Although the smell made him think more of an A&W than a cocktail party. "Doesn't look half bad when he's all dressed up, though."

"You sure know how to pay a compliment." Finn threw his head back and laughed as Poe dragged a few kisses along his neck, in full view of half a dozen patrons. For whatever reason their chiding gazes never seemed to have an effect on him. "Ease up, sweetheart. Gotta be professional..."

"Why? You're the boss around here, aren't you?" Poe reminded him. "Who's gonna say anything?"

"That guy." Finn nodded at a paunchy old man lurking by a totem pole, who had begun to withhold his donations since Finn had taken up shop as head curator. "Those two." A waifish woman with a haughty tilt to her botoxed lips and a squat little mouse of a husband clinging to her elbow, his face the same shade as her lipstick. "And there's a couple others hanging around here somewhere. I'm pretty sure they just came for the open bar, honestly..."

"I get it, I get it, you're surrounded by bigots." Poe pulled away after one more comparatively chaste kiss, though his lips lingered a moment longer than they should have. He couldn't seem to help himself, sometimes. "Not so fond of l'il old me and you, are they?"

"Their loss. Why were you late? Left me to fend for myself..."

"Bianca had a science project she didn't tell us about." Poe had spent the past hour hurriedly throwing together a diorama about the tropical rainforest, complete with some rather accurate trees made from bay leaves and pipe cleaners. It wouldn't win any awards for beauty, but it would do. At the very least he figured it would earn her a B+. They could both live with that.

"Really? 'Cause she told me she had a poetry project yesterday, too..." Finn went quiet for a moment, so deep in thought that not just his brow scrunched up, but the rest of his face did as well. "Is she just saying she forgot so that we do most of the work for her?"

Poe blinked. That was a revelation. "Are you saying our eight year old has been playing us for the past year?"

"Yep."

"Damn." That was a sobering thought. "Well, at the very least we raised a smart kid..."

"That's how I'm choosing to look at this." Finn laughed as he peeled a stray firetruck sticker off Poe's cheek. He glanced at the door and sighed in relief when he caught a glimpse of the museum director. "It's the cavalry. I'm free to go."

"So soon?" Hadn't Poe only just got there? "Man, you really don't like parties, do you?"

"Hate them with a passion." It really couldn't be put any nicer than that. And since being promoted he had only been expected to go to more.

"Then how 'bout this." Poe looped his forefinger under Finn's tie and tugged him in conspiratorially close, humming low in his ear, his breath sugary and tone sultry sweet, the purr of an fine-tuned engine. "For propriety's sake, stick around for another hour or so. Say goodbye to everybody, chat with the director, say a word or two before the silent auction. Then work from home tomorrow." he coaxed. "It's my day off, and I'm sure Mac and Cheeto would rather have you than daycare. You just take it easy, alright? I'll do the laundry, the dishes, make a bunch of cookies..."

"Chocolate chip?"

"Chocolate chip." Poe confirmed, pulling back to see Finn's impossibly wide smile. From the sparkle in his eye, an outside observer would think that Poe had suggested some form of debauchery, rather than baked goods and an opportunity to skimp out on household chores. Frankly, that excited Finn a hell of a lot more. "Now, go be the charming son of a bitch I know you can be, got it?"

"Fine..." Finn threw back the last of his drink and sighed, plastering on a smile as a particularly generous patron teetered over to him with a swaying gait, her attempt at a seductive smile softened and skewed with the cocktails she must have put away. They had spoken a couple glasses of Sex on the Beach ago, and even then she had done her very best to get Finn naked in the back of her Bentley. This was not a conversation he was looking forward to. However, the promise of cookies was enough to steel his nerves. "Make that double chocolate?"

"I think you've earned it, sweetheart." 

 

\----------------

 

"Get _off_..."

"That was my intention..."

"You know that's not what I meant." Finn chided, his words soft in the hazy yellow light of the garage. Poe just kept on nuzzling along his neck, kneeing the gearstick as he crawled over and settled himself properly in Finn's lap, the leather seat squeaking underneath them. "We can't fuck in the car."

"We _can_ fuck in the car. What's stopping us from fucking in the car?"

"The fact that there's no condoms in the car. With our luck it'd be triplets, this time." Finn mumbled, ruefully kissing Poe back. It was a compulsion now, really. If he wasn't careful he always seemed to find himself with his lips pressed to Poe's cheek. "Or quadruplets..."

"Don't you dare jinx my uterus. I had enough trouble carrying around two." After one more furtive kiss Poe staggered out of the car with a resigned sigh, stumbling into the sled Bianca had leant up against the wall the week before. Barely October and the kids were already reeling in anticipation of winter holidays, watching the skies for that telltale blanket of thick grey clouds. Poe hoped for their sake it would snow. "Fine. But only 'cause I don't want to be a beached whale again."

"You weren't a whale..."

"I _was_ a whale. Couldn't see my toes for three months."   

"Well, whales don't have toes at all, so you weren't a whale." Finn said practically, pulling Poe out of the garage and nearly tripping over the cat on the way into the house. He was surprised he hadn't broken his back yet, with it skulking around the way it did. There had been some rather close calls, though.

As they crept through the foyer something shifted in the corner of Finn's eye, a shadow that just might have been his imagination. He, quite wisely, waited on the welcome mat to take off his shoes, letting Poe venture forth and fall victim to the ambush waiting in the wings. Poe let out a yelp as he was jumped on and pushed to the ground by three shrieking gremlins. Or children, if you were choosing to be generous. "Jesus-"

"Hi, kids." Finn deadpanned, stepping over the squirming doggy pile on the carpet as he undid his tie. "It's past your bedtimes."

"No, it's past _your_ bedtime, Daddy. You too, Papá." Bianca insisted. It was astonishing how confident she was. Aaron nodded in agreement as he sucked on his pacifier, blinking his wide brown eyes silently up at Finn. The kid was angelic, in a rather unsettling way. Angelita, ironically, was the impossible little rebel of the two, headstrong and vocal. Poe was certain the only reason she had begun to speak so early was to tell him to do things for her. Aaron wasn't quite as eager to speak, having only begun a few weeks ago to spout full sentences of mostly gibberish. Finn claimed to understand him perfectly, though. Claimed being the active verb. 

"You shouldn't be awake. Neither should you. Or you." Disregarding the objections, all three of the kids piled on top of Poe in a squealing, giggling heap. It was uncomfortable. "Help me."

Finn whistled and turned away, leaving Poe to fend for himself. Chivalry really must have shrivelled up and died. Resigned to his fate, Poe gulped on his last breath and let his eyes flutter shut, going limp as a ragdoll as the kids crawled over him, all knees and elbows and mysteriously sticky, prodding hands. Eight years a father, and Poe had yet to discover the source of the stickiness.

"I think he's dead." Bianca breathed, miming horror. At eight years old she was far too wise to fall for such a paltry ruse as this, but being only three, Aaron and Angelita hadn't quite developed such a discerning eye.

"Papá?" The twins asked in unison, the natural chorus of their voices vaguely unsettling. Poe prayed to God that Rey would never show them _The Shining_. His mental state would not be able to take that sort of thing. "Don't be dead, Papá..."

"Alright, alright, Papá's alive." Vaguely contrite when he saw the fearful pouts on their faces, Poe got to his feet and let Angelita and Aaron wrap themselves around his ankles while Bianca trotted upstairs after Finn. They were heavy, but he figured carrying them around was a good glute workout. "What were you all doing up?"

"Wanna wait." Aaron provided, his words a bit garbled, but reasonably understandable. That was an improvement, Poe thought. "Bee and me and Ita wanna wait."

"That's sweet of you, Mac, but you need sleep, okay? Sleep's healthy." Poe explained, scooping up the jacket Rey had forgotten on the couch. She was a rather absentminded babysitter.

"But we wanted Anca." Neither of them could master the entirety of Bianca's name, so they seemed to have divided it in two. Bianca didn't seem to mind, though. "Why's Anca not at daycare with us?" Angelita tugged at Poe's pants, which he pretended didn't squeeze around his hips the way they did. "We want her at daycare, Papá."

"She's too old for daycare, Cheeto. She'd get bored." He managed to drag himself to the bedroom the twins shared off of the living room, comfortably cramped and crowded with teddy bears and storybooks, the ceiling patterned with glow in the dark stars and planets.

"Don't matter." Angelita insisted, a pout rounding out her cheeks as she crawled into bed. The twins both adored their older sister, following Bianca like two lost little ducklings, waddling on pudgy feet and chubbier legs. They didn't look like they should be able to hold up much of anything, let alone run so fast that Poe had to put actual effort into catching them when they undressed themselves and decided to prance about the garden. They were not fans of clothing in any form.

Having coaxed them into the Pokemon onesies Finn had bought on impulse, Poe popped his back and pressed a couple dozen kisses to each of their foreheads, not particularly wanting to leave the room. Precious didn't begin to describe the two of them. Still finding himself unwilling to part, he sat down at the foot of Aaron's bed, watching the moon through the window and listening to Bianca's and Finn's conversation through the wall. She seemed to be arguing for a later bedtime with him. The scary thing was that Poe wasn't sure who had the upper hand in that situation.

As he relaxed against the wall their voices melted into the moonlight, lazy and languid, indistinct though the night was quiet. He heard a sudden burst of Bianca's laughter and smiled, picturing the way Finn mimed tossing her into bed before tucking her in snug and proper, down to the monster check and religious lighting of the nightlight in the hall, all of which usually wrapped up precisely at eight thirty. He closed his eyes and rested back against the wall with a sigh. As it turned out they thrived on routine, on a steady, consistent rhythm. Poe couldn't have imagined that a few years ago. Hectic had really been the only way to go.

"Why do I always find you asleep in random places?"

"Hm?" Poe opened one eye and smiled lazily at Finn, who had appeared in the doorway with two mugs and his thick blue robe with the hole in the pocket hanging halfway off his shoulder. "It comes with age, sweetheart. You'll get here in time."

"Sure, old man. You coming?" Finn held out a mug and smiled when Poe realised it was filled with hot chocolate. "You didn't think I was gonna give you tea, did you?"

"I knew I could trust you." Satisfied, Poe followed him outside, grabbing another marshmallow out of the bag on the kitchen counter and kicking off his clothes as he went, so by the time their bare feet touched the deck he was whittled down to his boxers and a singlet, his coat and binder and pants strewn across the floor or draped over chairs and counters. It was almost like the trail of feathers a moulting bird scattered in its wake, or the skin a snake left in the sand.

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Finn asked as they sat down side by side on the steps. Above them the sky seemed to swell and glitter, stars being born before Finn's eyes. He tilted his head back against the banister and sighed, his gaze meandering over to Poe, who seemed enthralled in his hot chocolate rather than stargazing. He had always been the practical one. 

"Pancakes." Poe hummed, the words rippling the surface of his hot chocolate. "Then taking Bianca to school, then cookies, then we spend the rest of the day with the twins. We can go to the petting zoo. And my dad had some food he wanted us to pick up. Stew, I think. And we might as well do some shopping..." 

While Poe chattered away Finn settled back against the banister, content to just let the words slip through his fingers, meaning lost in the currents as he watched rather than listened. There were so many things about Poe he couldn't have helped but picked up on over the past few years, things he always watched for, clung to like a security blanket. Like his habit of fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves, or pushing his hair back from his forehead at an unreasonable rate. Nibbling his lower lip, scuffing the ground in time to a song that was playing in his head - Finn could make a catalogue of Poe's quirks, if only such a thing weren't incredibly creepy.

"You're not listening, are you?" Poe sighed after awhile, his mouth stuffed with marshmallows. After making the most noncommittal noise possible Finn kissed away the smear of whipped cream on his cheek, hoping that would suffice as an apology.

"Maybe. Can you blame me, though? You're distracting."

"I'm choosing to take that a compliment." Poe smiled and turned in time to catch Finn's lip in a proper kiss. For a blissful little while they just sat and kissed and nuzzled, only to be interrupted by the pitter patter of feet on the stairs. Right as Poe's hand found its way down the front of Finn's boxers, too. They couldn't seem to catch a break.

"This isn't bed..." Poe mumbled as the twins clambered into his arms. Bianca settled herself down in Finn's lap, pulling his arm down on top of her like the security bar on a rollercoaster.

"Story, Papá!" Angelita declared. She prodded him in the chest with Bianca's worn old fairytale book while Aaron nodded in silent agreement, smiling around his pacifier. Likely that Bianca was complicit to this, too. "We all want story."

"Fine..." Being outgunned as well as outmanned, Poe flipped to the first page, careful not to let the cover fall off. He really should get more tape on it. "But then you're all going to bed."

"Me too?" Finn asked. Cheeky bastard.

"Shush..." Poe swatted at Finn with one hand, trying to balance the book and Aaron with the other. If only he had a third hand, his whole life would be a thousand times simpler. "Which story?"

"Snow White." For whatever reason Angelita was enthralled with the Evil Queen. She was a funny kid, but Poe had figured she would be.

"Beauty and the Beast." Bianca chimed in. Finn had expected that response, honestly.

"Goldilocks." Aaron lisped shyly. He was scared of the bears in the rather vivid illustrations, but he seemed keen on facing his fears in his own quiet way.

"Well..." Poe looked down at the three of them, six basically identical brown eyes all wide and pleading. Now how could he be expected to deny any one of those eyes?

After Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Goldilocks, and half of Sleeping Beauty at Finn's belated request, everyone but Poe was asleep, and even he was on the cusp of dozing off. At some point all three of the kids had transferred themselves into Finn's lap, soaking up as much warmth as they could get. He was a furnace as much as he was a father.

When the words started swimming on the page Poe closed the book and set it aside, picking up his mug of now lukewarm chocolate and glancing at Finn, slumped wearily against Poe's shoulder, but with arms still locked tight around his precious cargo. Asleep, he looked as young as the day they met, the smoothness of his skin and faintly smiling lips only reminding Poe of how quickly this had spiralled, sped and snowballed into something bigger than he could ever have imagined. Bianca cuddled Aaron close and Poe's smile widened into a gap-toothed grin. He would compare this to a weed infestation, but that didn't strike all that romantic a chord.

Anxious for a bit of company, Poe downed the last of his hot chocolate and tipped his head to the side, pressing a lazy, sugar coated kiss to Finn's parted lips. It took him a moment, then his woozy eyes fluttered open and his lips curled into a tired smile, all too familiar to Poe from countless Saturday mornings and Friday evenings, moments where Finn's guard dropped completely and utterly. 

"Hey, Prince Charming." Sighing, Finn nuzzled his nose into Aaron's hair, watching his curls flutter like a wheat field in a breeze before glancing back at Poe. "You my true love?"

"Sure I am. God, you're cheesy..." 

"Fuck off." Finn yawned, his voice syrupy and drowsy as a summer afternoon, making it rather hard for Poe to chastise him. You just couldn't call out a man for swearing when hearing him speak made you want to curl up and nap. Someone had to do it, though. 

"Don't swear in front of the babies, jackass. Bianca's already cussed out more than a couple people in her life..." Two pairs of loving eyes rested on the curled up bundles in Finn's arms, the sleeping faces and dimpled hands coiled like springs against his chest. "They won't be babies much longer, will they? Bianca won't even be a _kid_ much longer..."

"Makes you wonder." Finn nodded and gave each of the kids a kiss, rounding it out with a peck on the tip of Poe's nose. "But hey, we could always have another baby." 

"In your dreams, pal. I'm closing up shop. Halting production." Poe pat himself on the belly and shook his head. So long as there were no more accidents, he figured they would be fine. And he didn't really worry about him and Finn getting bored without another baby. After all, it wasn't like they didn't already have their hands full.

"You're ridiculous..." Finn sighed. The security light on the garage lit up as the cat wandered past and he looked around the yard, the vegetable patches with their yellowing leaves and the flower beds sleeping in anticipation of the coming spring. One addition Finn was particularly proud of was the pretty blue playhouse sitting beneath the tree. It had been quite the project, the size of a small shed and tall enough for Finn to stand up straight in, at least in the middle where the roof didn't slope. 

The summer they built it had been spent filling it with toys and sturdy wooden furniture painted mint green and lemon pop yellow, and the picture was completed with whitewashed window boxes creaking under the weight of roses clipped from their wedding arbour. A nice little house to compliment the home they had managed to cobble together for themselves, the life stitched together like the patchwork quilt draped over the rocking chair in the living room. 

"Remember the birds that built a nest in there last spring?" Poe asked after retrieving the quilt and draping it over Finn's shoulders, covering the kids by extension. It was an unseasonably warm night, but the occasional gust of wind still made them all shiver. 

"Oh, yeah. Those were cute." At least once a day all the kids had insisted on being lifted up so they could peer at the speckled brown chickadee eggs nestled snugly in the nest of twigs and fluffy down. "Thank God the cat didn't get to 'em..."

"You know he's too lazy to do that, sweetheart." Poe laughed. That might just be because they overfed him, but that was all on Finn. After all, he was the one in charge of the cat food. Grumbling about the accusations directed at his precious pet, Finn pulled Poe under the blanket with him, nuzzling under his chin with a sigh. 

"Can we sleep outside?" he yawned, his voice muffled in Poe's collar.

"We can't sleep outside." 

"They're already sleeping outside." Finn insisted, nodding at the kids. He turned to Poe with the patented frowny face he had passed on to Aaron. "And I can't get up, at any rate..."

What was it with this family and irresistible eyes? Defeated, Poe gathered the throw pillows off the bench by the door, layered three or four picnic blankets on the deck, and after digging out another few quilts managed to throw together a nest of down and wool, just as cosy as the one the birds had built in the playhouse. "Happy?"

"God, you're wonderful." Finn sighed as he curled up on the quilts and pillows, arranging the kids in a cosy heap between him and Poe. "This stupidly romantic as I think it is?" he asked once they were all curled up beneath a quilt.

"I think so." Poe confirmed. Well, it would be if it weren't for the kids. That seemed to have become a running theme over the past few years. Finn nodded off a moment later, but as it turned out, neither of them wound up getting much sleep, too busy waking up to make sure that the kids stayed snug and warm as time wore on. So the night was spent in a drowsy haze, counting the stars and creating constellations, eyes on the kaleidoscope sky while their entire world slept soundly in their arms. 

"I feel like I'm dreaming." Poe breathed as the sun started to come up. Too tired to answer, Finn drew him into a lazy kiss, delicate as the dew clinging to the spiderweb strung between the awning above their heads, soft as the baby breaths puffing between them. Everything about it was tentative and slow, tiptoeing on the edge of a precipice.

Because if it was a dream, Finn didn't particularly feel like waking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill have you know this was meant to be a oneshot


End file.
